


your life is a perpetual insomnia

by Buildyourwalls



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blow Jobs, Character Death Fix, Childhood Trauma, Coming of Age, Drinking & Talking, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Enemies to Lovers, Falling In Love, Found Poetry, Hand Jobs, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Insomnia, Intercrural Sex, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Panic Attacks, Past Abuse, Post-Season/Series 03, Presumed Dead, Recreational Drug Use, Road Trips, Robin is a Feminist, Soul-Searching, Steve is a Hot Mess, Team as Family, Trust Issues, Underage Drinking, Underage Drug Use, Unresolved Sexual Tension, robin is a BAMF, scoop troop scoopin and troopin, scoop troop shenanigans, so is billy, steve the babysitter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-12
Updated: 2019-12-12
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:00:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 54,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21763363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Buildyourwalls/pseuds/Buildyourwalls
Summary: After the Mind Flayer takes Billy away, Steve is trying to get on with his life. Until one day a mysterious letter comes in the mail and he embarks on a journey to find Billy with Robin, Dustin, and an orange VW van named Betty at the helm.A story of love, found family, and a whole bunch of Scoop Troop witticism.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 114
Kudos: 322
Collections: Harringrove Holiday Exchange 2019





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [oephelia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/oephelia/gifts).



> Dear oephelia, 
> 
> I was lucky enough that I had had a story circling in my mind by the time I had signed up for this fest, and I am hoping that it aligned well with your prompt. I really hope that I have done this proper justice and that you will enjoy this journey that I have laid out for our boys.
> 
> Thank you to the mods for running this beautiful fest and for giving me a prompt that helped me finish this idea I had in my head already.
> 
> Special thanks to Socknonny for the beautiful beta and introducing me to this fandom. You are a wonderful soul and friend and I am so thankful for our conversations and your flailing! I don't know if I would've been able to finish this or even come up with this concept if it wasn't for your hand-holding, your youtube sharing, and the lovely talks about canon. Also, huge shout out to my hags for all the time we spent sprinting in Nov for Nanowrimo. This fic definitely assisted me in getting to that 50k mark <3 
> 
> A/N: In terms of the accuracy on this story, I have to say that all of the cities I have written about I have never personally visited. My husband grew up in Indiana and was able to impart some serious wisdom about Hawkins and how the show sets it up to look like Southern Indiana, and also educated me with some terrain 101 through the plains, and about areas of Colorado as he also lived there as a child. Mostly I wanted to portray the feeling of travel, the grief of losing someone you think is gone, and 3/4 of the Scoop Troop Scoopin' and Troopin'. 
> 
> That's my blanket disclaimer on any specifics I have not done potential justice. I have to say there has been a lot of googling done for this fic, more research than I have ever done for a story in a long, long time. I hope that if you happen to be from any of these areas that you feel I have given it the love it deserves. Google Images can only provide so much. Oh and I maintain that if the Duffer sibs don't understand how cold Indiana is in November, I can take some leeway with it in March LOL

The first time they kiss is on a clear night under a smattering of stars. Steve shivers at the chilly bite of the wind, the way the breeze blows around their feet. It’s awkward, and aggressive and weird. He thinks at first that Billy’s going to punch him in the face in that near empty parking lot of the mall. Instead, he pushes Steve up against the cold brick building and kisses him. 

Billy leaves as quickly as he came, leaving nothing behind but the squeal of tires against the pavement, the burning stench of rubber, and Steve panting for breath. He’s dizzy and awakened for the first time in a long time, it’s like there is something to live for after all. 

That kiss changes everything.  
  


* * *

  


There isn’t a plan.

Steve’s awake in bed, staring at the flat surface of his ceiling blooming with colors of the sunrise. Pale stretches of pink, orange, and purple span over white paint, creating random shadows in the corners. He hasn’t gone to sleep, because sleep isn’t important anymore. Steve doesn’t like to sleep because when he sleeps, he dreams. 

He dreams of lazy smiles, and icy blue eyes, and curls. He dreams of sardonic chuckles, and narrowed stares, and angry whispered secrets. He dreams of gasping breath, swollen lips, and breathless moans that beg, _don’t stop._

So he doesn’t sleep, lets days turn into nights which turn into more days until he collapses into bed. He made the mistake of having that happen at work, ending up with a concussion and a hell of a lot of shoes on his face. His boss told him to take some time off, citing that the position would be his when he was ready to come back.

Steve’s not going back. The new mall is too bright, too loud, too much. It makes his skin crawl to see the smiles and excitement of strangers passing by. They don’t know the darkness that creeps around the corners, the emptiness that hangs inside with loss, the dreams that come later. They don’t know what it’s like to wake in a cold sweat with tears on their faces, staining their cheeks, shaking and alone. 

The idea comes on day three of no sleep, no dreams, just pure consciousness. Nothing but streams of thought, technicolor'd vibrancy right in the forefront of Steve’s mind. He’s got the television on but he’s not paying attention, the voices droning and elongated and deafening in the emptiness of this large house. 

The idea comes on day three of no sleep, in the form of a small letter in a wrinkled envelope with an address inside of unknown origin. Steve recognizes the penmanship right away, small and neat. A cursive that when he first saw it thought _that’s pretty_ , which was a strange thought considering whose writing it belonged to. Everything about Billy was all-encompassing and addicting, an undertow current so strong it swept people away. He wasn’t pretty, but his writing was, and Steve liked it. He liked it a lot. 

With blurred vision and shaky hands, Steve stares at the wrinkled note, with its numbers and letters and that perfect script handwriting. He stares and stares until he almost gets run over by a car that peels around the corner, because he’s virtually in the middle of the road from backing away from the mailbox as if it’s the one delivering messages from beyond the veil. 

He knows what he has to do. He knows what this means, but he can’t... figure out how he will do this. Which means one thing. 

He has to see Dustin.

***

“Holy shit,” Dustin says when he opens his front door. “You’re like an extra on _Return of the Living Dead._ ”

“Thanks,” Steve replies wryly. He places a hand on the door frame for balance, the need for sleep too real. “Can you just let me in and we can talk?”

“Dude, we’re not talking about a goddamn thing. You need, like, a shower and a dark room for a week. Also: Did you _drive here_?”

Steve closes his eyes, sucks in a deep long breath, and exhales with practiced ease. “How else do you think I got here?”

Dustin’s palm shows up in front of Steve. “Give me your keys.”

Steve blinks. “What?”

“I said give me your keys. At this moment you are an endangerment to society and it is my duty as a fellow citizen to upkeep the peace.” 

Now Steve rolls eyes. He doesn’t have time for this, he has to _tell him_. “Dustin—”

“DUTIFUL. CITIZEN. KEYS. NOW,” Dustin commands, his voice a near scream. Steve relinquishes the keys into Dustin’s hand, peeking over his shoulder to make sure none of the neighbors heard anything. The last thing he needs is being accused of trying to kidnap a minor. 

“Very well,” Dustin says, slipping the keys into his jeans and pulling the door back further. “You may enter.”

“I’m not a vampire, you know, I don’t need an invitation.”

“Could’ve fooled me with the way you look like hammered shit.” 

Steve flops onto the couch. “I’m wounded. Really.” 

His eyelids are heavier, and his body is relaxing into familiarity. It’s a place he has spent many nights at. It’s just—it’s easier to be around life, instead of waking up alone, in a lonely house, with nothing but the echoes of unfulfilled promises. 

The familiarity takes over again, the ease of slumber tugging at his insides. He doesn’t realize what’s happening until the softness of a pillow under his head, the comforting weight of a blanket. 

His hand remains curled around the envelope.  
  


* * *

  


The second time Steve kisses Hargrove is at a party Steve crashes almost a month later.

Hargrove’s standing outside in the bitter fucking cold, smoking a cigarette, blowing thick plumes to the moon. Steve doesn’t know how he’s managing with no gloves on, how he stands outside like the cold isn’t affecting him. The music inside the house is so loud it rattles the windows, raucous laughter and screams of happiness pouring out from the foundation. Steve doesn’t want to go inside to that, doesn’t want to be a part of it, because things have changed, and they don’t know. They don’t understand about the Upside Down and the evil it contains. They don’t know about greedy government organizations. They don’t know how it is to beg for death to come fuck with you. 

Instead he stops right as he’s making his way up the driveway, watching Hargrove take another long drag, blowing more thick smoke up to the night again. He doesn’t even look at Steve when he speaks. 

“What are you staring at, Harrington?” Hargrove asks, his voice devoid of emotion.

Steve swallows hard, licks his lips. “Um.”

Hargrove turns and raises an eyebrow. “Do you need something?”

 _Yes_ , Steve wants to say. Instead he says, “Um.”

Hargrove’s features turn sharp. His voice cuts like a knife. “What?” 

“Why?” Steve manages, his hands curled into fists on his side. Hargrove's eyes widen for a moment before shuttering. He looks back to the stars. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Steve takes a step. “Yes, you do.”

Hargrove's jaw tightens. “No,” he grits out. “I don’t.”

Steve takes another step closer. “Yes. You do.”

Then Steve’s slammed against the tree, his back digging into thick bark. It knocks the oxygen out of him, and Hargrove's face is close to his, the sweet scent of smoke on his breath, mixed with that tang of cologne that he always wears. Steve’s knees grow weak. 

“No,” Hargrove says in a low voice. It sounds ragged and torn, just like how Steve is inside. 

“Do it,” Steve whispers, his heart hammering in his throat. Billy’s fists tighten into his shirt. “C’mon. Do it.” 

“Fuck you,” Hargrove spits, but his eyes stay trained on Steve’s mouth. Steve smiles, tilts his hips up and meets the brush of a thigh. 

“If you’re lucky,” he murmurs, and then Hargrove kisses him again for the second time in a month. It’s nothing like it was at the mall, surprising and strange and overwhelming. This time Steve is ready, but Hargrove gives more now, more teeth, more tongue, and it makes something split open inside of Steve, something he didn’t realize needed ripping apart. 

When Hargrove pulls back, they’re both gasping for breath, his leg still slotted between Steve’s. The thing that Hargrove ripped apart inside of Steve is aching, curious, and hungry. It wants to taste more of the inside of Hargrove's mouth, chase past the sour of old cigarette and find him.

“Let’s get out of here,” Steve whispers, and Hargrove lets out a breathless laugh of disbelief. He pulls back and catches the expression on Steve’s face, and gapes.

“Holy shit you’re serious.”

Steve narrows his eyes. “Why wouldn’t I be?” 

Hargrove’s tongue licks across his bottom lip, poking into the corner for a long silent moment. He nods, as though he’s come to a conclusion. 

“Okay,” he says, turning around and walking away.

Steve blinks several times, watching the darkness wrap Hargrove up, his shadow stretching across a pool of deep yellow streetlight. He stops and angles his head, hands slipping into his pockets. 

“You coming or what?” 

Steve doesn’t need to be told twice.

The car ride is silent and awkward, the only sound between them the roar of the camaro’s engine, and the music on the radio. Hargrove reaches over and flicks it off, and Steve sinks down into the leather seat, tilts his head towards the window and examines the sky. 

The moon is full. There’s a bright white nebulous ring surrounding it, sharp and striking. When Steve was little he was obsessed with the night, eager to learn about constellations and the planets and the moon. His mother had read to him a story once about a man in the moon, how he wanted to visit Earth. Steve would stare at the moon for hours every night, silent pleas for the man to come down so he could have someone to talk to, someone to understand, someone to help escape what he later discovered was loneliness.

Now the night makes him unsteady, makes him look over his shoulder. But there’s something about the stars and the moon that Steve remembers, and when he studies the patterns of its surface, gazes at that hazy ring around it, he wonders if there is a man in there too, just like there are monsters down below.  
  


* * *

  


Steve didn’t dream much before Billy. Before the Upside Down. Most of the time he just slept and woke up the next day. But since Billy, he dreams more. He dreams of seeing Billy’s lazy smile when he’s got Steve in the position he wants. He dreams about that first night they kissed. He dreams of stars.

He always wakes with a sense of overwhelming lethargy, of confusion and sadness. This time isn’t any different. The only difference is that he can hear Dustin talking on the phone. 

“Dude, this is serious shit, okay?” Dustin hisses somewhere deep into the house. At some point Dustin’s mom relented and allowed him to have his own phone in his room. The kids have upgraded from walkie talkies to telephones now, even investing in many hours on three way calls much to their parent’s annoyance. 

A frustrated groan echoes down the hall. “Lucas, I’m just saying this may be a Code Red and I need to make sure you’re gonna rally the hell up if we have to do something about it, okay? Oh shit I hear something, I’ll call you later, bye.” 

Steve situates himself until he’s sitting on the couch, the heavy granny square afghan pooling at his hips when Dustin rounds the corner. 

“Ah, he’s alive. You hungry? My mom made meatloaf last night, and it was pretty good,” Dustin rambles, walking into the kitchen. There’s a familiar clatter of dishes, and then the beeping of the microwave before Dustin returns into the living and tossing a can of Jolt to Steve. He almost drops it. 

“I’m not hungry,” Steve says, peering down at the cold can. He doesn’t even like Jolt. 

“Too bad, you’re gonna eat. You look like shit. If my mom catches you like this she will keep you here until you move in.” He settles down on the other side of the couch, tapping onto the top of the can before snapping it open, the pop hissing alive. 

Steve scrubs a hand over his face. “That’s not why I came here.”

Dustin hums, taking a long gulp of his drink and letting out a belch. Steve gives an impressed nod. 

“I know.” Dustin pauses, his eyebrows creasing with worry. “But it doesn’t mean people don’t want to help.”

Steve closes his eyes, reaches into the pocket of his jeans and pulls out the letter. It’s creased and worn around the edges, but the blue ink still shows evidence of Billy, and Steve’s throat constricts. 

“This...this came in the mail.” 

Dustin takes the paper and examines it. “An address?”

“Yes.”

“Why do you need an address?”

“I—” Steve stops, the twist of his chest distracting him. He gathers up two fistfuls of the afghan and sucks in a deep breath. After Billy’s funeral (empty casket, small ceremony, his father absent) the panic attacks began. They happened with no precursor, hitting Steve like an anvil to the chest. They happened in the middle of the aisle at the grocery store, in empty parking lots of the mall, on a Sunday when he was watching television alone in that barren fucking house. 

“Steve,” Dustin murmurs, his voice tinged with concern. The beeping of the microwave alerts them about the food.

“You better get that.”

“Screw the food, what’s going on?”

“He’s alive,” Steve whispers, his voice shaking. His eyes burn at the words, but he knows, he fucking _knows_ it to be true. 

“Who’s alive?” Dustin asks, like he doesn’t want to hear the answer. Like he doesn’t want to know. Like the truth is a new monster that he’ll have to survive. 

Steve closes his eyes and fortifies himself. “Billy,” he manages. The name that’s the sound of glass shattering on a tiled floor, the scream of shock, the whisper of a memory. 

Dustin studies the paper again, eyes moving as he reads the half bit of information on there. There’s not a city, or a state. Just a random address that has no beginning, no end. 

“How do you know Billy wrote this?” 

Dustin’s voice remains calm, his eyes still focused on the paper. Steve clenches his teeth hard, digging his nails into his palms. 

“Because I know his handwriting, that’s how.”

“Steve—”

“If you won’t believe me, then I will deal with this on my own,” Steve snaps, holding his hand out for the paper. “I’m not going through this again. He’s alive. This is proof! Everyone demanded proof, and now we have it!” 

Dustin holds his hands up in surrender, the paper precariously balanced between two fingers. Steve hardens his stare, and Dustin matches it. They say nothing for a long time. The paper remains in Dustin’s hand. 

“You really think he’s alive,” Dustin says, more of a statement than a question. 

“I know he is.”

Dustin sighs, and looks down at the paper again. “Okay. Well, first thing’s first: This doesn’t mean jackshit unless we have a city. Did you keep the envelope?”

Steve blinks several times. “Yes?”

“Good because that’s our first clue.” Dustin rises from the couch, handing Steve the paper and leaving the living room to walk back to the kitchen. When he returns, he hands over what is now a cold plate of food, a fork and napkin. 

“I don’t understand,” Steve says, stabbing into the meatloaf. When he takes a bite, his stomach growls in joy, reminding him of how long it’s been since he’s eaten. 

“Of course you don’t,” Dustin says with a roll of his eyes. He leans back into the couch and tucks a leg under his knee. “So whenever you send a letter or package at the post office, they always mark the envelope over your stamp to void the purchase of the stamp. But not only does it do that, it also provides a location code of where the letter is coming from.” He pauses, rolling his head to look at Steve, a large smile spreading over his face. “We get that code, we know the city it came from.”

“But how are we going to figure out if the address belongs to that city?”

Dustin shrugs. “Simple: the library. We can get reference information associated with the postal location. From there we can look up street names through an atlas.” 

“Holy shit,” Steve says in wonder. “You’re a genius.”

Dustin smiles wide again, leaning over to snatch Steve’s untouched Jolt. “Duh, no shit, dude.”

***

The Hawkins library is a newer construction from the one that Steve had grown up with. Its stark white stucco against a dark blue trim makes it appear more modern and poetic than its last rendition. When the whole Russian involvement in the city was exposed along with related parties being involved (like the mayor) the new guy went above and beyond and renovated most of Hawkins in an effort to boost morale.

If someone had asked Steve if it did any good, he’d shrug his shoulders, and say, “Fuck if I know.” The last year has been a magnificent blur of insomnia, restless sleep, a short stint with booze and last, thanks to his coworker Brent, weed for when times got Really Tough. 

Steve’s hair is still wet from the shower that Dustin demanded he take because, “You smell dude, and I don’t even want to guess how long it’s been this time.” The answer is only a couple of days, and he knows that Dustin was exaggerating, but he still went home and took a quick one before heading out to adventures unknown with Dustin Henderson at the helm. 

The inside of the library smells like carpet and fresh paint, unlike the old one which reeked of dust and ancient paper. Steve would occasionally go to the library with Nancy, walk along the old shelves gliding a single fingertip over the plastic covered spines of the books. He used to complain about how boring it was, but deep down he liked it. It was like a calming liminal space, the beginning and the end all happening at once. 

Dustin navigates with ease, right to the very back of the building and down a set of narrow stairs. They end up in the basement of the library, small windows shining in slivers of pale sunlight. When they reach the large desk in the back, a young woman spins around, her smile wide with recognition. 

“Dustin!” The woman says. Her straight blonde hair is bobbed to her chin, and bangs that slant to the side, threatening to invade the black frames of her glasses. “What can I help you with today?”

“Elena, this is Steve. Steve, Elena,” Dustin introduces, and Steve lifts an awkward hand in greeting. “She helped me a lot when I was getting into space exploration and assisted in getting around that five book check out rule. Gave me the paddles I needed for exploration.”

“Very interested in Voyager if I recall correctly,” Elena responds with fondness, folding her hands onto the top of the cherry wood desk. Steve blinks a few times, as the exchange between Dustin and Elena continues into babbling about supernovas and some other space related shit before he establishes that he would literally rather be in bed than participate in this nerd party at the moment. 

“Hey Dustin,” Steve says quietly. “Can you ask her whatever it was you were going to ask?”

“Oh right!” Dustin says, reaching out and wiggling his fingers. “The envelope.”

Steve swallows thickly, reaching into his back pocket to pull out the paper evidence. It’s now folded vertically and horizontally, and Steve looks down at it for a long moment, studying the neat cursive, the looping curve at the bottom. He stares at it, his eyes stinging a little, chest clenching because this is all he has left. Just a simple thin piece of paper and pretty penmanship.

Dustin’s hand curls around Steve’s elbow, startling Steve out of his reverie. “You okay?” Dustin whispers, his eyes tracking to the librarian and back to Steve. 

“Yeah,” Steve says, with a nod. “Sorry about that,” he adds, tacking on that award winning smile that always puts everyone at ease. Elena grins back politely and takes the envelope from them. 

“All right, what are we trying to figure out?”

Elena says 'we' as if she’s a part of this whole investigation, a part of this journey to get back to Billy. She’s not, and Steve feels a sense of protection of that small piece of paper, the only lifeline he has back to the rough palm of Billy’s hand, the heat of his mouth, the honesty of his eyes. 

Steve leaves Dustin to it, wandering towards the shelves of books. They’re in the reference area, filled thick with volumes of encyclopedias and dictionaries large and wide. One shelf is dedicated to years of almanacs. He reaches up to touch their wide spines, and notices they don’t have the protective plastic coverings. They’re stuck in the liminal space forever. 

Steve understands.  
  


* * *

  
They end up at a rock quarry. It’s not Sattler, but another one further out of town near Bloomington. The jagged rock faced slopes give way to a sharp path to the water below. Hargrove parks his Camaro right to the edge, and Steve grabs for the door bracing to tuck and roll if he has to. He didn’t face aliens several times in a row and risk dying for the sake of the kids and come out alive to only free fall off some rocky edge with Billy Hargrove.

Hargrove rolls down his window, the shock of cold edging into the car. He leaves the heat on though, lifting his hips up off the seat to pull out a smashed pack of smokes. Steve cracks his window too, watching the way the moonlight dances across the flat water below, mirroring the stars and light from sky. 

“I come here sometimes,” Hargrove says, shoving a cigarette between his lips and lighting it up. The tip burns a bright orange, soft clouds of grey clouding around him. Hargrove inhales deep, smoke breathing out of his nostrils like a dragon. “You know, to get away from it all.”

Steve says nothing, not yet. It’s like they’re on the knife’s edge of something tremendous, and he doesn’t want to tip it into the wrong direction. If that happens he’ll lose the moment, and it’ll be gone, erased from existence. Steve is tired of things being erased from existence. 

“Ever been here before?” Hargrove asks. He’s holding his eyes forward, staring into the natural unknown. 

“No,” Steve says. “Been to Sattler a few times, because...you know.”

Then Billy faces him. “No, I don’t.”

Steve sighs. He doesn’t want to go into the details about Sattler being Hawkins’s personal makeout point. He doesn’t want to think about how he had taken Nancy there a couple of times before they ended, and how one time he went there with Evan. Steve met him right after joining the basketball team, and they went to Sattler after they had won their first win of the season. Steve got the last three-point shot, earning him the respect of everyone on the team, and ultimately the school. 

They never talked about what happened in the dark corner of Sattler, further away from other cars so they wouldn’t go noticed. How Evan’s lips were remarkably soft although every single thing that ever came out of his mouth was sharp and piercing. He never told anyone the way their hands fumbled into each other’s jeans, bringing each other off, how Steve shuddered afterwards and Evan continued to kiss him through his post orgasmic glow.

At school they were basically strangers. It seemed to be the unspoken vow. They had gone back a few more times, and then Evan graduated, went to some random college in Florida. That last night Steve was hungry to learn everything he could before it vanished. They fogged the windows from their activities, leaving Steve’s car smelling of semen and sweat for days after. Then Evan left, nothing but a distant memory that Steve could only access through his daydreams. 

“Usually people go to Sattler to hook up,” Steve explains. 

“Ah,” Hargrove says, sucking in another drag. “Not a fan of getting my car a mess.”

This earns Steve a surprised laugh. “Not all of us can get away with random motel getaways.” 

Hargrove shrugs. “Not a fan of motels either.”

“What are you a fan of?”

Hargrove turns to Steve, gaze dark. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

Steve holds Hargrove’s stare and says, “Hargrove—”

“Billy.” 

Steve blinks, “What?”

“Billy. That’s my name.”

Steve blinks again, confused. “I know?”

“So, call me that.”

They stare at each other in the luminous glow of the moonlight. A breeze filters inside the car, sharp and freezing, right at the same time Billy reaches up and traces a fingertip along the side of Steve’s throat. Steve shudders, his eyes fluttering shut. 

“Let’s come back here again,” Billy whispers. Steve whispers back, “Okay.”

***

It happens again two weeks later, right when the air turns warmer, the waking prologue to spring. The birds are singing again, the sun rising earlier in the morning and setting later in the evening. It’s the time of year when everyone switches from heavy wool jackets to t-shirts and jeans again, from winter boots to sneakers. It’s not Steve’s favorite time of year, but it’s nice to walk around without suffering as though there’s ice in his lungs, combined with the sudden rush of dry heat that hits his face when he enters a building.

So he can’t contain the smile that spreads over his face when Billy shows up at his job at the mall, right before closing, leaning against the till counter like he’s a part of the furniture. Like he has all the time in the world, and the exasperation of the other co-worker doesn’t fucking matter. His hip is jutted out, with one leg crossed over the other, the toe of his boot planted right onto the floor. It does something funny to Steve’s chest, flutters all the way to his stomach. 

Of course this happens as Steve is pushing the mop out awkwardly from the back of the shop to clean up the sticky floor after a long day of glorified babysitting. 

“How do you know where I work?” Steve asks, in lieu of a greeting. 

Billy levels him a stare. “This is what happens when you hang out with the rugrats.” Steve quirks an eyebrow, his jaw clenching a bit and Billy rolls his eyes with a sigh. “Maxine.”

“Oh. Right.”

The smirk on Billy’s face is almost too much to handle. “Right.”

“Steve, I do not have time to hang about while you play footsies with your friend,” Robin yells from behind and Steve’s face flushes with embarrassment. Robin pokes her head from the serving window, crossing her arms as a smile tilts on her face. Steve is almost positive she was a part of that whole burning her bra movement at some point. Everyone who works with her fears her in some way. Steve secretly loves it. 

“Don’t mind her,” Steve drawls too loud. “She’s just jealous.”

Robin snorts as she bends over to grab a few boxes to throw away. “You wish, pretty boy.” 

Billy laughs, large and loud, his hand resting on his stomach. Steve recognizes the ring that came into contact with his face several times and swallows hard. The memory of that floods his mind. It’s absolute insanity that he’s standing in front of the very person who came close to pommeling Steve to death is laughing at his job. 

“I’ve got—” Steve looks down at his watch. “About fifteen minutes before we’re done here. I can ask Robin if you can hang out?”

Billy shakes his head, still chuckling. “Nah, I’ll wait outside. I parked near you.”

Steve nods, watching as Billy leaves without a backwards glance. The spell breaks when Robin snickers behind him. He narrows his stare and grabs for the mop. 

“I don’t know why you’re laughing,” he mutters, and that leaves Robin giggling more. 

“Don’t worry,” Robin says, coming around and patting Steve on the shoulder. “Your secret is safe with me.”

He doesn’t ask what she means by that, and focuses on cleaning the sticky floor with much more enthusiasm than necessary.

***

They don’t talk during the drive again. A song plays quietly on the radio. Steve notices Billy humming, his fingers tapping against the steering wheel, eyes focused on the road ahead of him.

“Big Pat Benatar fan, huh?” Steve asks. 

“Love is a battlefield, Harrington,” Billy says, cutting a glance at Steve, the curl of a smirk at the edge of his mouth. "Don’t forget it.” 

Steve gets out of the car the moment they park, wanting to relish the cool night air before it turns into nothing but heat waves and humidity. It’ll be about sandals and shorts and sunscreen. It’ll be about how Steve bunked off trying to even send out his college applications because after being face to face with death, Steve doesn’t give a flying fuck about going down the path that his father took or wants him to take. He just wants to live, wants to see the sunset against the desert one day, wants to trace stars with his eyes, or drive along the coast with the windows down, the briny air against his face. 

But right now, he has this: an empty rock quarry, the edges of spring coming, and the waning moon. It’s nothing but a small sliver tonight, leaving the waters black and the ground virtually invisible in darkness. Steve curls his arms around his middle and shivers. 

The crunching of Billy’s shoes pulls him to the present, the burn of nicotine infiltrating Steve’s nose. “The air smells different here,” Billy murmurs after sucking in a deep drag of his cigarette. “Like dirt and death and cold. I miss the ocean and the sand.” 

“You think you’ll go back?”

Billy shrugs. “Maybe. Probably not.”

Steve turns, tilting his head as Billy flicks the growing ash off of his cigarette. “Why?”

“Because it’s over. It’s another lifetime. There’s no point in trying to relive it like a rerun.”

Later Steve won’t be able to say how it happened, how his mouth found Billy’s for the third time in over a month, how his hands cupped Billy’s face, and fingers threaded into his hair. What he will say is that he will never forget the ashy taste on Billy’s tongue, the sharp moan he swallows when Steve pulls him closer so that their chests bump into each other, the sting of Billy’s teeth sinking into his bottom lip. 

Billy pushes Steve until his back hits the roof of the car. The engine is clicking, radiant heat warm against his back. Billy spreads open Steve’s jacket, hikes up his t-shirt and bends over, licking a long circle around his navel. 

“Fuck,” Steve hisses, his hands gripping hard onto Billy’s shoulders. Billy laughs as his hands deftly unbuckle Steve’s belt and unbutton his jeans, pulling down the zipper. 

“Only if you ask nicely,” he murmurs, low and ragged. It makes Steve’s toes curl in his shoes. Then Billy releases Steve’s aching erection (he’s been hard the second they got into the car together) and as the heat of his mouth wraps around him, Steve breathes out a shaky sigh. 

When he opens his eyes, all he sees are stars.


	2. Chapter 2

“Okay, so,” Dustin says for the hundredth time in the last hour and a half. Steve jolts out of his near-doze in one of the big chairs that sits in the corner. “I am pretty sure that Elena and I have narrowed it down to three surrounding cities in Nebraska.”

Steve scrubs a hand over his face, gradually going over what he just heard. “Wait. Why three cities?”

“Jesus, you really don’t know shit about how postal services work, do you?” Dustin asks, earning a glare from Steve. “Okay, so, post offices don’t service every city. They go through a distribution center. So sometimes if you live in a smaller town, the code that shows up on the envelope associates with a city nearby. Take Hawkins for example,” Dustin explains with a wave of his hand. “Our circulation is through Bloomington.”

“How the hell do you know all of this?”

Dustin shrugs, walking over to a table where a pile of books resides. “I read it in a book and then I started reading more about it. What do you think a library is for? Some fun date spot?”

This earns a crude snort. “Clearly not.”

“Exactly,” Dustin says with a wide smile. “Now let’s get the fuck out of here because I’m starving, you’re gonna buy a bunch of pizza, I’m gonna call Mike and Lucas and we’re gonna figure out where the hell this address is from.”

“Demanding,” Steve mutters, pulling himself out of the chair and stretching. 

Dustin purrs. “You know it.”

“Do not,” Steve says, wrinkling his nose, “make that noise at me. You know the rules. No purring.”

Dustin rolls his eyes. “You’re no fun.”

“If you want me to get you extra pepperoni you won’t do it.”

A pause. “Fair enough.”

***

Steve ends up picking up Lucas and Mike at Mike’s house before heading back to his place and ordering the promised pizza. The kids sprawl out over the dining room table with several atlases between them, searching the winding streets with magnifying glasses. There are three cities that the mysterious address may be in; between the four of them they’re bound to find it.

There’s a pang of gratitude that sits low in his stomach when Steve realizes these kids aren’t kids anymore, that they’ve seen the monsters (literally) and have survived them (also, literally), and even destroyed them (essentially with their bare hands). Watching them grow and flourish is kind of amazing. Steve smiles into his mug of coffee.

Lucas heaves a heavy sigh, pushing back his atlas. “I wish El was here to help.”

Mike stiffens at the name, pausing in his own personal search before continuing back to his task. “Wouldn’t matter, anyway.”

Steve stops his next drink of coffee mid sip. “She hasn’t been able to…”

Mike shakes his head. “No. She’s getting better but her abilities are still—” he waves his hand in front of him as if to emphasize what he’s trying to say. “Stilted.” 

Steve nods in sympathy and continues his mug’s journey to his mouth. 

“Well, regardless if her superpowers are working or not, it’d be cool to get more eyes on these maps to help us,” Dustin mumbles as he moves a ruler over the areas he’s studying. “But chances are you two would be too busy dry humping to even help.”

“Hey!” Mike protests, his head flinging up. “That’s not true!”

“Yeah it is, dude,” Lucas says, not even missing a beat, his head bent over a magnifying glass. “You’d bump pelvises the moment you got a chance.”

Mike groans, his cheeks tinged with pink. He inhales a fortifying breath and says, “Like you wouldn’t.”

Lucas chuckles, and Steve joins him. It’s been a while since he’s done that. He hasn’t been avoiding hanging out with the kids, it’s just that the days turn into nights which turn into days and Steve has been on an endless loop of hours on hours on hours. He’s missed their bickering, missed their energy. 

They’re all growing up, and there’s a twist in Steve’s gut about it. The exuberant glow that used to surround them in their nerdiness has shifted, gone from Dungeons and Dragons to focusing on something called a PC. They talk about things like concerts, cons, and television shows. They’re starting high school in the fall, and it shows in the way they carry themselves, in the way they see everything. 

Or maybe it’s because it’s the third time they’ve saved the fucking world from the monsters down below.

“I think I found it!” Lucas exclaims, popping out of his chair and knocking it over onto the floor. His fingertip is positioned on a spot on the map as everyone surrounds him. Lucas has to bend over in order to not get squashed from all the bodies. 

“Holy shit,” Dustin whispers in awe. “You found it.”

“Dustin,” Mike wheezes. “I can’t breathe.”

Dustin pulls back, his eyes wide at Steve. “We found it,” he whispers. 

Steve’s eyes sting as he stares down at the street name that Lucas has marked with his finger. “Yeah,” he whispers with a faint smile. “You have.”

***

The kids end up staying the night. They watch movies far too late, hopped up on new Coke and Jolt because Dustin “refuses to drink that abomination called New Coke, like, what the actual _fuck_ Lucas?”

Steve can’t disagree. 

It’s comforting, having the house filled with laughter, and voices that aren’t insecurities and memories from Steve’s head. He appreciates the distraction, and when it hits roughly two in the morning, he ends up gathering a dozen blankets and pillows, sets up the pull out couch and lets the boys argue for a solid five minutes before putting his hand up and announcing that someone can take the spare room. 

He sleeps for a few hours, comforted in knowing that he’s not alone, but the dreams come back to him eventually. Dreams of discovered bruises and glistening blue eyes, of twisted grins, and sharp rejoinders. He wakes up gasping, with limbs heavy, and the urge to cry sitting in the back of his throat. Steve never cries though. It hurts too much. 

So, instead of lying in bed staring at the ceiling and breathing through the ache in his chest, Steve pulls on a random Purdue sweatshirt that used to belong to his father at some point, and shuffles out into the living room to grab his keys and wallet. There’s barely any food in the house at the moment, and he still has an hour to hit up a Mcdonalds for breakfast. 

Dustin is already awake. His hair is a mop of messy curls, and his eyes are bleary and tired as he stands in front of the fridge with the door open and a look of contempt on his face. 

“You have nothing edible in this fridge,” he says matter-of-fact.

“No,” Steve agrees. “Which is why I’m fixing that now.” 

Dustin’s eyes brighten with interest. “McDonalds?”

Steve smirks. “You bet.”

“I’m coming with.” Dustin flings the fridge shut, breezing past Steve and to the front door. “You never get enough hashbrowns.” 

“Lead the way, oh wise one,” Steve mutters as he follows.

***

The kids are awake by the time they get back, and whoop in laughter and happiness as Steve and Dustin pass around various breakfast items. They watch Saturday morning cartoons because nothing else is on, bitching over who gets the last hashbrown before Steve has to pull the whole parental voice and say, “If you can’t figure it out I’m gonna eat it myself,” even though he’s not even hungry.

He ends up dropping them all off at Mike’s place, Dustin being the last to get out. He fidgets in the front seat, hands jerky and restless. Steve waits for him to talk.

“What are you going to do now?” Dustin rolls his eyes at Steve’s bemused expression. “About the address?”

Oh. Steve rubs the back of his neck. He hasn’t given it much thought, really, especially since it’s brand new information and, well, it’s not like he has many people he can talk to about this. Jonathan and Nancy moved in together after Nancy got a job working as a stringer at a newspaper in Bloomington, and secured Jonathan a spot as a photographer. They talk every so often, but not as much as they did before everything went to shit. 

His decision lands on brutal honesty. “I don’t know.”

To Steve’s surprise Dustin laughs. “Of course you don’t. Don’t ever change, man.” He opens the door and has one foot out before he turns back to Steve and says, “We’ll figure it out, yeah?”

Steve grins and nods. “Yeah, sure.” 

And just like that Steve watches Dustin disappear into Mike’s house, most likely going into the same basement they have always convened in since they were old enough to walk and talk. Steve doesn’t know what they’ll do today, doesn’t know what music they’ll listen to, but at least he knows they’ll be safe. He turns the car into reverse and pulls out of the driveway.  
  


* * *

  


Seeing Billy in school is hell.

They pass each other in the hallways, but they don’t stop and acknowledge each other. They have the same gym period, but they never say more than five words that don’t comprise of some kind of basketball-related exchange. They catch each other’s eyes during lunch time, sometimes holding each other’s gaze, and then they’re blinking, looking away, drawing their attention to what’s in front of them. 

Steve doesn’t understand what they’re doing. He doesn’t understand how it happened, how he got caught up in the storm of Billy Hargrove, but he’s here in the eye, waiting for that to pass over with hurricane force winds that knock him on his ass and leave him dizzy. He considers telling Nancy, but knows that means she’ll just end up telling Jonathan, so he says nothing at all, just keeps it to himself. This tiny secret that he didn’t even want. 

It happens again at lunch. Billy sits on the other side of the loud cafeteria, settling down onto one of the long benches, and Steve watches, feels his heartbeat increasing at an alarming rate. Billy shifts in his seat, clenching his jaw and wincing, but he keeps his eyes on the plate in front of him. Steve’s mouth goes dry.

“You’re quiet,” Nancy remarks, trying to track Steve’s stare but he jerks his head just in time so she can’t follow. “Everything okay?”

He shrugs. “I guess.”

Nancy’s warm smile is too familiar. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Then Jonathan shows up, settling down next to her, placing his camera on the table before pulling out a smashed paper bag from his backpack. They do this now, settle in the far corner of the cafeteria, trying to ignore the cacophony of voices echoing against the large room. They eat and talk, and try to be normal, whatever the fuck that is now. Today Steve doesn’t want to act, he wants to go to the quarry and stare at limestone formations, look at the water down below. 

“No, not really.”

Nancy and Jonathan share a knowing look, and Steve resists the urge to roll his eyes. Just a couple more months, he thinks, and then—

Then what? He’s not going to college, much to the dismay of his father, because, again, what’s the fucking point? He can’t work at the stupid ice cream shop scooping cones and making sundaes for the rest of his life for four dollars an hour. But the delusion of going to school and being around these people who were a hair’s breadth width away from worldly demise just rankles something inside of Steve, makes him want to get in his car and drive 80 on I-70 and never turn back.

“Steve,” Jonathan says, in that soft voice that used to drive Steve batshit but now makes something inside of him split. He clenches his fists when he realizes that he’s shaking.

“Don’t you ever feel like everything around you is just...living a lie? That everyone else is delusional and pretending to be something they’re not? And that they expect to do the same?”

Nancy and Jonathan exchange another silent conversation, and it takes everything Steve has not to slam his fist onto the table, to demand the truth. 

“Yeah,” Nancy admits, her eyes still trained onto Jonathan for a long moment before turning back to Steve. “Sometimes—yeah.” 

The tension in Steve’s shoulders dissipates, and he exhales a long breath. When he glances back over to where Billy is sitting he sees that he’s gone.

***

Gym is last period and Steve lingers in the locker room, waiting, hoping that Billy will walk by and say something, anything. He takes his time gathering up his sweaty and rank gym clothes before shoving them into his backpack, skips the shower and decides he’ll take one when he gets home. He normally picks up a couple of the kids after school but Ms Henderson said she could cover for him today, leaving Steve caught in an, albeit embarrassing, daydream of spending more time with Billy.

He’s practically out the door when he hears his name echoing in the locker room. Steve stops, doesn’t turn around. 

“Where are you going?” Billy asks behind him and Steve closes his eyes.

“Home.”

“Why?”

Steve whirls around. “What?”

Billy is a solid foot away from Steve. His hair is wet from the showers, and his shirt is buttoned open, revealing the long expanse of smooth stomach. Stray droplets cascade over his collarbone and chest, and Steve tears his eyes away because his dick is responding and now isn’t the fucking time. 

“Why are you here?” 

Steve’s eyebrows draw together. “What?”

Billy growls, his hands curling into tight fists on his side. “Are you capable of anything outside of a boring monosyllabic response?” 

Steve settles for a shrug as an answer. Billy rolls his eyes, pulls out a smashed soft pack in his back pocket, and places a bent cigarette between his lips. 

“C’mon,” he says, voice muffled by the cigarette. “I need a smoke and I can’t do it here.”

Steve stupidly follows because he’s a damn cliche, chasing after someone who ignores him when they’re around other people, but the moment they’re alone, suddenly acts like Steve is worthy of his time. Steve’s done this before, sneaking around the shadows, and while he’d rather spend the rest of his life in the Upside Down than admit what Billy does to him, he can’t shake the suspicion that for Billy this is just another game. 

The parking lot is empty save for a few of the usual suspects, mostly janitors. Steve’s shared a smoke with Carlos a few times when the prospect of going back to an empty house was too much to bear, and everyone was still under the guise that King Steve had it all. Steve never had much of anything except the constant lack of a reality. He wants that now, and he’s cobbled together something of it, but Billy’s sending him in a tailspin and he can’t take it anymore. He won’t. 

“Look, I don’t have time to follow you around whenever you’re a bit frisky,” Steve snaps, hiking his backpack on his shoulder and heading towards his car. It’s not parked far from Billy’s, and Steve has a moment where he wonders if it’s always been like this. Then he decides it doesn’t matter where the hell Billy Hargrove parks his Camaro, he’s going home because he smells like a gym bag and he desperately needs pizza and a nap. 

Before he even unlocks his door, Steve’s slammed against the side of the car, his backpack falling to the ground. He huffs out a sharp gust of surprised breath, and Billy’s right there in his face, his naked chest brushing against Steve. He suddenly wishes the barrier of a t-shirt wasn’t there. 

“I know what you’re thinking,” Billy hisses, his fingers digging deeper into Steve’s shoulders. “But I’ll tell you this once, and only once: I’m not a coward, and when I commit, I fucking commit.” 

Billy’s face is close to Steve, hot breath ghosting over Steve’s mouth. He leans forward, their lips nearly brushing, and Billy’s eyes widen for a second before darkening. His lip curls in what could be mistaken as a sneer but Steve knows. He knows that it’s more than that, the way that Billy’s breath hitches a little when Steve adjusts against his grip, how his eyes flicker for the briefest of moments to Steve’s mouth and back up to his eyes. 

“Follow me,” Steve whispers, unable to speak louder. Billy pulls back and releases his tight knuckled grasp, fingers trailing over Steve’s collarbone before walking back to his car without a second glance. 

The drive to Steve’s house seems to take an eternity. REO’s _Can’t Fight This Feeling_ rumbles out of his radio, and he laughs hollowly at the way the universe speaks to him in the oddest ways. Sometimes he wonders if El is channeling him in the distance, sheltered away in the four walls of Hopper’s cabin. Steve saw her recently when he picked up the kids for a trip to the arcade at the Byers house. Hopper was sitting in the dining room with Joyce smoking a cigarette, laughing over a glass of wine. 

That was a good night. The kids were hanging out and having fun, and Steve stood back and watched them bitch over Gauntlet and Super Mario Bros, taking turns and taunting each other with glee. But there was something unsettling in the pit of his stomach, a twist of anxiety and nervousness that Steve couldn’t pin down. 

It nearly drowned him in a tidal wave with the noise, laughter, and bright blinking lights of the arcade. He had to leave the building for a moment and gulp several breaths of fresh, night air before the twist in his chest settled down. El had followed him into the night, placed a knowing hand on his shoulder and said, “Sometimes we miss who we used to be,” before sauntering back inside. 

He’s pulling into his driveway with a hammering heart soaked in anticipation. Steve doesn’t have any idea how this will go, how Billy will handle this, but in the last few weeks, getting caught up in the wake of Billy Hargrove has left Steve needing some answers. Answers that burn inside of him late at night when the nightmares of monsters from another world come into the forefront of his mind, when the prospect of being so close to so much death drowns inside of him. 

Billy parks next to him in the driveway and follows five paces behind Steve, even as he goes to unlock the front door. Then they’re in the kitchen and Steve is grabbing two bottles of beer out of the fridge, popping off the caps on them, the metal clinking onto the smooth countertop. Steve can almost hear his mother admonishing him about scratching the surface, but he doesn’t give a shit. If she cared, she’d be here more often. 

“Nice place,” Billy says, after taking a long swig of beer. His tone verges on sardonic, and Steve snorts.

“Thanks, I think.” He leans against the counter, laying one arm on top of the other, the glass of the beer cold against his skin. “My parents are never here. That is unless they want to update the furnishings.” He spreads his hands out beside him. “You’re looking at the newest model of kitchen that Sears and Roebuck have to offer.”

Billy huffs out a dry chuckle. “The smallest violin is playing in a symphony for you.” 

Steve takes a long pull from his bottle. “I’m honored. Truly.”

Billy finishes the beer and slams the bottle onto the counter with more force than necessary. “Since we’re here, Harrington, give me the tour.”

Steve smiles and sets his bottle down next to Billy’s, tilting his head towards the living room. “Right this way.”

***

Billy does a small spin around Steve’s bedroom, letting out a low whistle. “Damn, Harrington, I see why they call you King Steve.”

Steve doesn’t give into the bait, too keyed up on the fact that Billy’s actually in his bedroom. Whenever he’s had girls in his room it normally lead to something more than talking about the room itself. He would understand what to do if Billy was a girl, even with his acerbic tongue and his burning eyes. He’d understand how to fight that, has had a couple of chicks like that before, but when he’s around Billy he loses his footing, is lost. 

So when Billy sprawls onto Steve’s bed like it’s his own, appraising it with an impressed nod, clasping his hands behind his head, Steve bites the inside of his cheek to stave off how the way Billy’s open shirt falls off to the side, revealing more expanse of his chest, makes his dick stir. Instead he pushes on and asks the question that has been circling around in his head since that night at the mall. 

“Why did you do it?” 

Billy raises a sharp eyebrow. When he doesn’t speak, Steve realizes he thinks that’s answer enough. 

“You can’t—You just—” Steve expels a sharp breath, glides a hand through his hair and grabs at the root. It’s hard to say how Billy almost killed him not even six months ago, how he doesn’t understand and what the fuck is the point in all of this? 

Billy’s off the bed in a flash, right up in Steve’s space. He can smell that heady cologne of his, likes the hot breath against his cheek before his lips settle against Steve’s ear. When he talks, his voice is low and commanding and it makes Steve shiver. 

“What would it take?” Billy asks. Steve squeezes his eyes shut, balls his hands into fists. He can’t find the words to say _I don’t know_ , to say _Do it again_ , to say, _Everything_. 

“You know what?” Billy growls, guttural and sharp. Steve’s eyes snap open to see him scrubbing his face. “Fuck it.” 

Steve’s hand fists around Billy’s shirt, pulls him closer until their chests are flushed. He bites back, voice low. “Dude, you don’t have to fucking run away every time I ask you a question.” 

Billy’s eyes harden, frosty and shuttered. “Then answer the question, Harrington.” 

Steve searches over Billy’s face, jerks him forward so that their chests bang into each other, and slams his mouth against Billy’s. It’s rough and possessive, sloppy and wet. It makes Steve’s toes curl, makes his blood burn. 

“That’s more like it, pretty boy,” Billy murmurs against Steve’s lips and Steve doesn’t protest when he pushes him into the mattress.


	3. Chapter 3

“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” Steve says when Robin shows up at his house with a burnt orange VW van four days later. She’s leaning against the side, long pale legs exposed from her cut-off shorts, a loose shirt tucked inside, hair pulled up halfway. She crosses one leg over the other and her bright red lips stretch in a sly smile. 

“Nope,” Dustin says with glee. 

“How the hell did you get roped into this?” Steve demands, pointing to Robin. He turns to Dustin, his finger near his face. “How did you rope her into this?” 

“You’re giving the little dweeb way more credit than he deserves,” Robin replies, crossing his arms across her chest. “You think I wouldn’t find out?”

“Hey!” Dustin protests. “This was a joint effort and you know it!” 

“You think calling me up and asking about cars large enough to fit the Brady Bunch was some testament to circumspection?” Robin asks, a thin eyebrow cocking up towards her hairline. “Is this kid serious?”

“What makes you think I didn’t do that on purpose?” Dustin asks, his head bobbing a little. Steve tilts his head towards the sun and sends a silent prayer.

“Can we please focus on the more important subject matter here? Like, how the hell Robin knows about all of this?”

“She doesn’t know all of it,” Dustin explains, and Steve whips his neck to focus on Dustin’s goofy grin. “Breadcrumbs, baby.”

“And if you don’t give me the details, then Betty here,” Robin pats the van with her palm lovingly, “is not going anywhere except back to my house.”

“Betty?” Dustin and Steve ask in unison. 

Robin rolls her eyes. “Rubble?” She narrows her eyes when Dustin howls in laughter. “Keep it up asshole and you’ll have to walk to whatever little road trip you have planned.” 

“No, don’t!” Steve protests, walking closer to Robin. “Dustin just has a compulsion to laugh at the dumbest times.”

“Not true,” Dustin wheezes, his arms wrapped around his middle. Steve throws him a hard stare. 

“What do you want to know?” Steve asks, with a sigh. 

Robin lifts an easy shrug. “Everything.” 

Steve’s not excited about adding another body into this mess, but Robin has faced the same demons they all have, and she is the only one who can provide the proper transportation they need. At first Steve just wanted to take the Beamer and himself onto the large open road, but the kids demanded anything but, stating that they were in this together, especially after spending an afternoon looking at maps to find out where the hell this address belonged. 

So naturally, they needed something bigger, and apparently Robin is willing to provide that. Given a price. Robin Buckley never gets involved unless there is something in return. 

Steve sighs. “Fine, but I’m not doing it out here.” 

“Lead the way, oh wise one,” Robin drawls behind Steve as he walks back inside of the house while Dustin mutters, “Of all the things to call your car, you settled on Betty.” 

Robin kicks her shoes off with ease, making her way towards the couch in the living room. The blankets from the sleepover are still in various heaps across the furniture, and Robin picks one up without question and tosses it into a pile on the floor before bouncing onto the couch. 

“Dude, show some respect,” Dustin says, parroting the same exact words Steve has said a million times before as he settles down onto the opposite side. “This is Italian.”

Robin blinks. “No shit?”

Dustin shrugs. “Apparently.” 

They both stare at Steve who sighs into the la-z-boy, his fingers tracing over soft fabric. Sometimes, after several days of no sleep he wakes up in this chair, neck aching from the odd angle, and feet tucked under his legs. Sometimes he doesn’t know how he got there. Almost every time he walks into the kitchen in search of food, before giving up and going back to sleep on the couch. 

“Okay, so spill,” Robin says, her head tilting to the side in anticipation. “I haven’t got all day. I work in three hours.” 

“I cannot believe you are still dealing with that asshole,” Steve says with a shake of his head. 

Robin shrugs, that familiar mischievous smile showing up. “Keith thinks I’m awesome.”

“Which is code for ‘Keith wants to get into my pants’,” Dustin translates with a grimace. “Which is an abomination to mankind.”

“Eh, what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him,” Robin replies with ease. 

Dustin furrows his eyebrows. “What does that mean?”

“It means,” Robin says, that ever knowing grin still dancing on her face. Her eyes do not leave Steve as she speaks. “That like your bestie over here, I too have difficulty batting for the opposite team.” 

“You know that’s bullshit,” Steve says, exhausted. “I do, in fact, like girls.”

Dustin is silent for a long time and then his face shifts as the realization dawns on him. “Ahhhh,” he says. “This explains a lot.”

“What does that mean?” Robin asks, her voice hardening. 

“Nothing,” Dustin says. “Just something Steve said one time.” 

Robin lifts an eyebrow, and Steve raises his hands in surrender. “I never said shit. The kid’s too smart for his own fucking good.” 

“We’ll discuss this later,” Robin says, pointing at Steve. “So, spill. What the hell kind of trouble have you gotten yourself into this time?” 

Steve slumps back into the recliner and closes his eyes. He doesn’t know what is the beginning or the end. He doesn’t know how he got to this place, this awful place where all of his days run together in a mess of hours, and thoughts, and dreams, and wishes. He doesn’t know how to even find the words to explain. 

Dustin speaks, and Steve smiles. At least he has that.

***

After Dustin finishes, there’s a long, awkward silence. Steve peeks open an eye and sees Robin staring at him in disbelief.

“Let me understand something,” she says very slowly. “You got a letter in the mail with an address—”

“No city or zip code,” Dustin adds. 

“—And you manage to track it down to this random city in…” She turns to Dustin, “What state is it in?” 

“Nebraska,” Dustin replies.

“Nebraska, right? So you found out it’s in this city in Nebraska, and you’re going to...what? Just go there? Knock on the door and see who answers?”

“Pretty much,” Dustin says with an overabundance of enthusiasm. 

“Yeah, no,” Robin says, crossing one leg over the other and swinging her foot out and in. 

Steve’s stomach twists and a rising panic forms in his chest. His whole body is like it’s been dumped in scalding water. 

“What?” he whispers. 

“No fucking way,” Robin says, drawing out each word, “are you going to take my car on this insane idea of a trip, potentially find Billy Hargrove and do it without me. Besides,” the cat-like smile slips onto her face with ease. “You need someone to tag team for the driver’s post, anyway.” 

Steve smiles, a warmth spreading through him he hasn’t experienced in a long time. Robin isn’t giving him the fierce stare, her brows scrunched together and her lips turned down because she doesn’t care, she’s doing it because she does. And really, she always has. She learned about Billy and what was going on before Steve figured it out. How could he possibly tell her she can’t do this with him? 

“Okay. Yeah, okay,” he says with soft fondness. He licks his lips. “You can take the night shift.”

Robin gets up from the couch, walks close to Steve and brushes back a bit of hair that has fallen over his eyes, and says, “Like hell I am.” Steve tilts his head back and laughs.  
  


* * *

  


The first time Billy Hargrove ends up staying at Steve’s house is the first time Steve gets an idea why he beat him nearly to death.

He has a bruise on his jaw, his neck welted and angry, the indentations of fingernails right along the side. His eyes are glassy and red, like he’s been holding back tears, and Steve has the sudden urge to reach out, pull Billy close and never let him go. 

Instead he clenches his fists on his side, and pulls the door open wider, inviting Billy in.

Billy doesn’t speak when he walks into the house, starts to take off his boots at the door, wincing when he bends over to untie the tight laces. He doesn’t speak when he makes his way into Steve’s room, limping, his breathing harsh. He doesn’t speak when he unbuttons his shirt, revealing long red lashings on his back. 

He hisses when Steve touches those hot marks, lets out a shuddering sigh when Steve bends over and carefully, oh so carefully, places a gentle kiss along a particularly painful looking one. He gives a wet sniff when Steve turns him around, gingerly places his thumb and forefinger under Billy’s jaw and turns it to the side examining the mottled wound. 

“You’re not going back,” Steve whispers.

Billy huffs a humorless laugh. “I don’t have a choice.”

“You always have a choice,” Steve insists, his voice lacking the heat he thinks it should have. 

“No,” Billy says, in a hushed tone. His eyes narrow, one hand wrapping around Steve’s wrist painfully. “I don’t want pity.”

Steve increases the pressure of his fingers, marginally, under the vice grip of Billy’s hand. Billy’s mouth parts, a small painful cry escaping between his lips, blue eyes shining.

“This isn’t pity,” Steve says, stepping closer, resting his other hand on Billy’s hip. “This is entirely selfish.” 

Billy’s lips part at the pressure of Steve’s fingers, eyelids lowering and gaze shifting into that familiar heated uncertainty, like he’s dancing the choice between kissing Steve or landing his fist in his face. But Steve doesn’t give him time to choose. 

Instead, he leans in, grazing his lips across the stubble of Billy’s jaw, over the blooming bruise and places a soft kiss right under his jaw. He presses his fingers into Billy’s neck again, earning a sharp gasp, and smiles against his skin, flicking the tip of a tongue over the wound, gentle and calculated. He tastes the tang of faded cologne, the copper overtone of blood. 

When his mouth reaches Billy’s ear, brushing over that fucking earring that does things to his chest, he closes his eyes and whispers, “Stay.” 

Billy’s arm wraps around Steve’s waist, jerking him closer so that their bodies are touching from knees to chest. Steve groans when he meets Billy’s erection, presses his face into his neck where his hand was and breathes in deeply. There’s that spicy mixture of his cologne, the salty tang of sweat, and something else underneath that makes Steve want to taste, to bite, to touch until he’s memorized it all, until he can recall it from memory at a moment’s notice. 

A hand threads into Steve’s hair, grips at the base of his neck, and tugs. The pain is sharp and exciting, and the sensation travels all the way to Steve’s dick. He gasps out a shuddering sigh, eyes fluttering shut, and before he can open them again, the heat of Billy’s mouth is on his, insistent and hot. The kiss is as dirty as Billy’s tongue curling around Steve’s, and Steve’s toes curl when the tip of that same tongue graze across the roof of his mouth, his knees buckle a little when a set of teeth bite into his bottom lip. 

The kiss isn’t perfect, and that’s what makes Steve want more of it, want to drown inside of it. It’s not perfect— it’s angry, and harsh, and Billy Hargrove puts a fight up even when he’s kissing, and there’s something so incredible about that to Steve. He wonders if Billy is like this with everyone he’s kissed or if he’s reserved it just for him, and the thought of that makes Steve rip his mouth away, panting. His hands are curled around Billy’s biceps, and his eyes settle on the swollen red of his lips, the uneven rise and fall of his shoulders as he pants for breath. 

Steve doesn’t know how he ends up on his back on the bed, just that the wind is knocked out of him for a moment, and his eyes grow wide in surprise when Billy slips on top of him. He’s on top of him and he’s screwed his eyes shut tight, hissing out a breath of pain, and Steve reaches up, brushes back the fallen hair over Billy’s shoulder and huffs a laugh.

“You’re a fucking idiot,” Steve says with fondness. He wiggles underneath the heat radiating off of Billy’s skin. “Lay down.”

“And you’re a bossy bitch, Harrington,” Billy grouses, gingerly arranging himself onto his back. 

Steve turns to his side, placing a hand next to Billy’s head, leaning close so that their noses brush. “Steve.”

Billy raises an eyebrow, his blue eyes narrowing a little. He’s a blurred mess in Steve’s vision, and it makes sense that they’re both a blurry mess of everything, and yet they keep finding each other over and over again. 

“My name, you dickhead. You want me to call you by yours, so you can call me by mine.”

Billy’s lips stretch into a smile against Steve’s mouth making Steve’s eyes flutter shut. “Well, when you put it like that.” 

Steve kisses Billy again just to get him to shut up. He kisses him again because what he wants to do is give back to Billy what Billy gave him in the rock quarry, with his mouth wrapped around his dick, moaning and gripping hard to Steve’s thighs. He wants to see what his face looks like when he comes, wants to know how loud he will get. So that’s why he’s kissing him, Steve reasons, because he wants to do these things, but he also wants to taste the inside of Billy’s mouth one more time. 

“What are you—” Billy begins, and then his eyes roll into the back of his head as he huffs out a breathless laugh. “Holy fuck, Harrington.” 

“Steve,” Steve murmurs against Billy’s collarbone, nipping at it. “Remember?”

Billy’s hand threads through Steve’s hair, his nails scratching along his scalp. “Steve,” he whispers, back arching, when Steve licks a circle around Billy’s nipple. “Jesus fucking Christ, have you done this before or something?” 

Steve squeezes, working his hand faster just to see Billy cry out a surprised moan, delighting in the way his body shivers under him. “What do you think?” 

“I think—” Billy gasps, his grip clenching tighter. “I think I’m never getting get rid of you.” 

Steve laughs against the warmth of Billy’s chest, kissing and nipping and licking every place he can get his mouth. He twists his wrist the way that he knows will drive Billy mad, takes a moment’s pause, much to Billy’s annoyance, and licks his palm with the flat of his tongue, slow and languid, smiling at the way Billy’s mouth parts, at the crease that shows up between his brows. 

When he jerks Billy off again, he doesn’t take it slow, isn’t kind or careful. He’s brutal and rough, tugging and squeezing, and Billy fists the pillow under his head and grips onto Steve’s shoulder hard, his eyes closing tight, his moans growing louder and louder the closer he gets to coming. When it happens, when he comes, Steve doesn’t bother easing off, lets Billy’s spunk get all over his stomach and chest, and is pretty impressed that a small bit lands on the plaid wallpaper that Billy made fun of so much the first night he saw Steve’s room. 

“Shit,” Steve says in wonder, eyeing the small mess dribbling down his wall. “You fucking shot your load on my wall.”

“All in a day's work,” Billy murmurs, throwing an arm over his eyes, heaving several breaths. “Fuck, that was—” 

Steve turns over, reaching for the towel on his floor, wiping his hand. He slowly cleans up Billy and wipes ineffectually at the wall. As he traces his fingers over the mottled skin, he glances up to see Billy watching him.

“It was?” Steve repeats.

Billy doesn’t speak for a long time, his eyes searching over Steve’s face before he settles on, “Not bad.”

Steve snorts and shakes his head. “Scoot over, will you?” 

They lay on their backs, staring at the ceiling above them, the silence growing more cavernous and heavy. He can hear Billy’s breathing even out, the twitch of his fingers next to him. It makes Steve’s skin itch, and he jolts up, walks over to his boombox, popping out the tape inside and replacing it with another mixtape. Steve used to make them all the time when he was dating Nancy, show up at her locker, pulling out a plastic encased cassette with a flirtatious smile on the outside and a little sense of hope that she’d understand what he was trying to tell her on the inside. 

He hasn’t made one in a long time. Too busy trying to find some semblance of who he was before—before demogorgons, and government labs, and the eternal hell of the Upside Down. Before finding little girls as powerful as God himself, who makes Steve safe and petrified, before a group of rugrats became some of his closest friends. Before Nancy Wheeler stopped being his and became someone else's. 

Before Billy Hargrove. 

As he plucks through the options in an old shoebox, Steve settles on one he made sometime last year, when he learned his parents would leave over Christmas. It seemed fitting at the time. He almost played it on his way over to Dustin’s for Christmas dinner, and then Ms. Henderson insisted Steve stay, muttering to herself how she couldn’t understand how his parents could leave him alone on Christmas of all days. Steve didn’t even try to argue, and took to the couch, dreaming of creatures with petaled heads and large sharp teeth. Dreaming of junkyards and waiting to see what it’d be like to die. Dreams that bordered on nightmares, because Steve understood a lot about nightmares and these weren’t that yet. Just dancing along the precipice so that when he woke up, he couldn’t get back to sleep for a long time. 

When he turns around to head back to bed, Billy has already shucked off his jeans and is under the blanket, hands clasped over his bare chest. He’s still looking up at the ceiling, but his breathing has steadied and something twists inside of Steve’s chest, his world tilting on its axis when he realizes that the pang that’s rattling inside of his chest is _affection_. 

Steve swallows several times, trying to assuage the hammering in his chest. He focuses on walking over to his dresser, pulling off his t-shirt and replacing his jeans with pajama pants. He keeps his socks on because he’s always freezing at night even in the height of summer, and it dawns on him that Billy will know this about him, that he keeps his socks on at night. The little details that make up a person that’s shared with very few. Inhaling a deep breath he grabs for another pair and turns around. 

“Want some?”

Billy blinks to Steve and raises an eyebrow. 

“Pajama pants, you asshole. It gets cold in here.”

“Why would I want that when I have _you_ to keep me warm?” Billy says, that famous-Billy smirk curling at the corners of his mouth. 

Steve rolls his eyes and tosses the pajamas back into the drawer. “Fine. But you better not snore or steal all the covers or else I’m tossing you out the window.”

Billy chuckles, “Easy there, princess. Why don’t we get ourselves situated first before we make demands, hm?”

When Steve crawls under the covers, the heat of Billy’s body has left the area warm and inviting. Journey croons in the background, and Steve turns on his side, ghosts his hand an inch above the bruise on Billy’s ribs.

“How often do you let them do this to you?” he asks, studying the contusion. He wants to place his hand there, push a little into it just see how much it hurts. He wants to know if he can transfer that agony onto himself, even just a little. The thought he wants to do that makes him a little dizzy, leaves him off-kilter. 

“Don’t,” Billy says, voice hard. His eyes remaining focused on the ceiling. 

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t start asking questions you don’t want to hear the answer to, that’s what.” 

Steve’s mouth goes dry, and he nods. He knows the answer, has seen shit like this before. He’s not a complete idiot, despite what people may think of him, despite how he played that cool jock dude shit up just to fill that void inside of himself. He’s witnessed something like this before with a boy he passed the halls with in middle school, how the police came and took him away, and the subsequent rumors that spread about his step father being arrested for hurting him. Steve remembers the look of helplessness in that kid’s eyes, the way anger blanketed over it. He remembers seeing that look in Billy’s stare as he laid into him before everything went black. 

And Billy’s here now, banged up and lying in Steve’s bed. He’s here now, warm and inviting, and Steve wants to know, he wants to dig in deeper and find out about those demons he has because Steve’s got them too and even though he has friends who are also carrying them, they’ve got someone, somewhere, who’s with them. Steve doesn’t have that. He’s just floating along, so fucking alone, and fuck, he just needs to know he doesn’t deserve to tackle this by himself too. 

So he looks at Billy, reaches up and brushes a knuckle along that purpled jaw and sighs.

“Welcome back,” Billy says, voice rough. “Got lost for a minute there.”

“Yeah,” Steve agrees. “I guess I did.” 

_Eyes Without A Face_ plays in the background, and Steve’s chest tightens at the memory of choosing this song. At the inescapable isolation he had went through. Even in a sea of people, he knows he’s the odd one out. 

“What are we doing?” Steve whispers. 

Billy turns to his side, winces as he settles, and lets out a long breath. His eyes rove over Steve’s face, landing on his mouth for a beat before flickering back up to his eyes. When his hand wraps around Steve’s neck, Steve lets out a tiny gasp, and Billy squeezes. It’s gentle but eager. 

There’s a weary grin that sits on Billy’s mouth before he says, “Figuring our shit out, don’t you know?” Steve furrows his eyebrows and Billy sighs. “I’m too fucking tired for this, Harrington. Are we sleeping or not?”

Steve leans back and turns off the bedside lamp. The room fills with darkness, and Steve tries to control his breathing. He almost always sleeps with a light on in the room’s corner, covering the lampshade to mute the brightness, but now they’re in the darkness alone.

Billy’s thumb brushes over Steve’s bottom lip, rests at the corner of his mouth. His hand remains on his neck the entire time, and Billy Idol continues to sing in the background.


	4. Chapter 4

There’s a plan.

There are maps, and Robin’s old VW Van, and an address. There are lists about food, details about driving rotations, notes about supplies to bring. There’s the setup in the back of the van for nights they can’t afford to stay at a hotel. There’s a plan. 

Steve doesn’t understand what to do with the plan, and Robin gives him a weary smile and takes over. She works with Dustin, which is strange, in Steve’s dining room, over several cans of root beer and chips, and they talk and talk and talk. 

They talk about nothing and everything all at once, and all Steve can do is close his eyes and wonder what will be there when they get to Middle of Nowhere, Nebraska. Steve’s been swimming a marathon of laps to keep his head above water, and he’s wondering if this will be the one thing that drowns him. 

Billy kept him afloat, and Steve didn’t even realize it. All those times he laid tangled up in his bed, long forgotten from his home, Steve had created something inside, filling that void of empty loneliness he carried for so long. 

But there’s a plan, and Steve’s never been one to give a shit about plans, but now he does. He really, really, does.

***

Robin’s still at Steve’s waiting for him when he gets back from dropping Dustin off. He’s insistent that he goes on the trip with him, despite Steve’s concern over how he will convince Ms Henderson.

“Trust me,” Dustin had said while Steve drove him home. “If I can hide a demodog in my bedroom and not get anyone killed for it, I think I can figure out a way to convince my mother that I’m not driving halfway across the country for a ghost.”

Steve gripped onto the steering wheel hard. “He’s not—”

“I know, I know,” Dustin said with a wave of his hand. Steve had hit the brake harder than he needed to when they make it to Dustin’s driveway. Dustin didn’t get out of the car to bound up to the house as he usual. Instead, he sat and waited until Steve turned to him. 

“I believe you,” Dustin said. “I think he’s out there too. And what the fuck is the point of doing all of this if we don’t do it together?” 

“Why do I suspect that there’s something in this for you?”

“Going on a massive road trip in Robin’s kick ass van to places unknown? How else am I to spend my summer?”

Steve grinned. “You make a point there, buddy.”

Dustin beamed. “Damn right I do. I’ll see you around. Hit me up on the walkie talkie if you’re lonely tonight,” he added with a waggle of his eyebrows before slipping out, waving one last time, and heading inside.

“Have you dropped off your adopted spawn?” Robin drawls. 

“Like you haven’t adopted him too,” Steve retorts and Robin smirks. 

“I fully maintain that I have adopted many of the littles clan. They’re handy. Especially when you’re in need of blackmail.”

Steve quirks a curious eyebrow. “You know what? I’m not even going to ask.” 

Robin leans back on the couch, tucking her hands behind her head and crossing her ankles. “Probably for the best. The fewer involved, the less messy it is.” 

They sit in companionable silence; the evening tucking its way in. Steve settles on the opposite side of the couch, closes his eyes and listens to the sound of crickets and cicadas buzzing outside, to the quiet roar of the night. It’s been one year since the day at the mall, since the day that Billy sacrificed himself to the Upside Down. One year since Steve screamed and screamed, trying with everything he had to get closer, to stop him, only to be restrained by a collection of hands. One year since Steve had to say goodbye to Billy in an empty casket, to a bullshit excuse of a father who didn’t show, to a stepsister who was unbearably heartbroken. 

“You’ve been looking better,” Robin mentions quietly. Steve opens his eyes and rolls his head to blue eyes boring into him. They’re not the grey-blue storms that Steve became so accustomed to waking up to in the early stages of morning, watching the way Billy tried to slip out of the bed without waking him. Steve always did, and he always watched Billy get dressed against the orange light of dawn. He left by the time the sun rose.

“And how did I look before?” Steve asks, trying to ignore the tightness of his throat. Robin’s eyes flit away, focusing on her hands. 

She shrugs, but it’s more tense than nonchalant. “Fucked up,” she says bluntly. “Lost. Confused.” She turns back to Steve and stares at him for a long time. “Heartbroken.”

Steve opens his mouth to respond but then his stomach growls in protest. He realizes that he hasn’t eaten all day. 

“You better feed that thing,” Robin says with a nod towards Steve’s belly. “Or else it may revolt against you.” 

Steve chuckles, scooting to the edge of the couch before pausing. “How do I look now?”

Robin grows silent, considering. “Hopeful.”

And with those words, something ignites like a flame inside of Steve. Something comes alive, unfurls like a plant receiving water after days without it. He revels in that, and doesn’t take it for granted. He lifts himself up and walks towards the kitchen, only stopping to ask, “Pizza?”

Robin smiles and nods. “Pizza’s great.”  
  


* * *

  


They’re at the rock quarry when Steve finds out that Billy knows about the monsters. Not the kind that Billy has, but real monsters who are just a crack in the universe away from where they exist. Spring is starting to make its way in, everyone switching their heavy winter coats to lighter, more fashionable, windbreakers. Steve can keep his jacket open without risking hypothermia, forgoing those awful winter hats. Small mercies.

The quarry’s water is also shifting from solid to liquid. The sky is opening up, showing off more stars that burn brighter and longer, clouds becoming thicker, and the moon is always there, waxing and waning. 

“You asked me once,” Billy says, sucking a deep inhale of the joint Steve just rolled. He holds onto the smoke for an impressive amount of time and Steve waits. The rough murmur of Billy’s voice has a weight to it that Steve isn’t sure he’s prepared for. “You know…Why I—why I kissed you that night.”

Steve takes the joint and inhales, the smoke sticky and sweet and heady. He closes his eyes, allows the slick relaxation to wrap about the thudding of his heart, untwist the coiled strain of his muscles. He will not look at Billy, because he knows if he does, he will do something stupid, make a foolish mistake in this fucked up disaster they’re both twisted in. So he doesn’t look. He just stares out into the melting quarry and into the last remains of limestone surrounding the edge, into the deep vast chasmal earth below. His foot is sitting just over the edge and he wonders if anyone’s ever leaped over it just see if they could reach the bottom. 

He takes another hit, pulls at the end of the joint hard and fills his lungs to the brim with smoke before handing it back to Billy. Steve’s not really a patient guy, but he knows when it’s a good idea to wait for an answer, instead of demanding it. He’ll wait for this. He wants to know. 

“Maxine told me,” Billy beings, the tone of his voice so low it’s a whisper. “About that night before I—” He pauses, and swallows audibly. “Back in November. She told me what was going on. What you guys saw.” 

The light of the moon grows brighter suddenly, and the thundering roar of Steve’s heart is so loud that he can scarcely make out the words coming out of Billy’s mouth. Even through the hazy high of the weed, Steve’s instinct is telling him that this is all wrong, that Billy shouldn’t know, and a deep-set sense of paranoia takes over him like a tsunami. He has the urge to throw up and bolt at the same time. 

“She shouldn’t have told you,” Steve manages, hoarsely. He doesn’t mean to sound as harsh as he does, but there’s something sacred about that night, something that only those who were there can understand. “You can’t even begin—That night we almost died.”

“I know,” Billy says defensively. “She told me you stood in a fucking junkyard and put your life at stake for them. She told me about this—this fucked up lab and, and something about how they...I don’t know, fucking broke open something in the universe, and about this girl--”

“Stop,” Steve hisses, burying his face into his hands. His skin is sticky and hot, and his heart keeps drumming inside his ribcage as a flipbook of demented images flickers in the darkness of his vision. Steve pushes the heels of his hands into his sockets until he sees stars. Until he can coax away those nightmares. 

“Hey,” Billy’s voice gentles, a tentative hand resting on Steve’s shoulder. “Hey, c’mere.” 

And then Steve is burying his face into Billy’s neck, taking deep breaths of his cologne, and shivering, fisting a handful of t-shirt into his hand. He’s shaking his head, and it makes him a little dizzy because he’s high, and then this is all too funny, too real, and too ridiculous, that he’s hugging Billy Hargrove in the early touches of the evening at a rock quarry outside of Hawkins. That the tempest that is Billy has taken Steve into its vortex leaving him marooned without a compass. 

Steve shudders when Billy presses his hand onto the nape of his neck, holds him steady. He balls his hand into a fist and waits, tries to calm the electric thrum inside of his muscles. 

“I didn’t know about everything that night. My old man he--” Steve opens his eyes, listens to the deep inhale of Billy’s breath and waits. “He was pissed because Maxine disappeared. And when he gets pissed...well.” Billy chuckles dryly. “Things get interesting.”

Steve pushes back, gets a glimpse of Billy’s face. It’s eclipsed in the darkness, but he can see the crease between his eyebrows, the bent of his mouth. He doesn’t say it, and Steve realizes he doesn’t have to say it. His stomach dips like he’s on a carnival ride that’s sent him whirling. 

“So what you’re saying is,” Steve whispers, searching over the shadows of Billy’s face. “You have demons too.”

Billy huffs a laugh, the hand on the back of Steve’s neck squeezing hard and pulling his face close. Billy’s lips brush against Steve’s, his breath hot when he speaks against it. 

“Yeah,” he murmurs. “You could say that.” 

When they kiss this time, Steve realizes that something has changed. They both have monsters they share, and it flips a switch inside of Steve, lights up everything that has been dark and he doesn’t want to give it a name but for the first time in a long time Steve feels alive.  
  


* * *

  


A random heat wave hits Indiana that summer, and everyone’s staying inside or living at the community pool. Steve, however, is busy going prep shopping with Robin, wandering the aisles of the grocery store one by one. He hasn’t slept in almost 24 hours, and the light of the store is almost too bright, too bold.

Robin stops, grabbing for cases of water and putting them into her cart. When she gets to three, Steve blinks and says, “Do we really need to buy a whole ocean’s worth of water?”

“Water is nature’s candy for the body,” Robin says primly. “And by the looks of it, the route we are taking is sending us through no-man’s-land and I refuse to die by dehydration.”

Steve rolls his eyes, pushing his cart forward and resting his forehead on his folded arms. “We will be in other cities along the way. That have grocery stores. This isn’t Lord of the Flies.”

“Ooh,” Robin coos, gently kicking Steve on the ankle. “Someone kept up with English class.”

“Shut up,” Steve says sleepily. “I’m tired. Are we done?” 

Everything goes silent for a long moment and Steve lifts his head to find Robin’s concerned eyes on him. She’s put back two of the cases and is tilting her head studying him. 

“When’s the last time you—”

“We,” Steve grits out. “Are _not_ having this conversation right now.” 

Robin’s teeth catch her bottom lip and she nods. “Okay,” she says tenderly, and it makes Steve’s nerves scream inside of him. He steers the cart forward, hearing the clicking of Robin’s behind him. She doesn’t speak until he’s staring at a variety of chips in another aisle, easing his breathing to a steady pace. 

“I’m sorry,” Robin says. 

“It’s not your fault,” Steve says, a little defeated. “It’s just—” he stops and licks his lips. Robin’s looking at him, waiting, and he can see through his periphery, blurred and patient. 

Every time Steve tries to close his eyes he sees a flipbook of Billy. Billy’s smile, Billy’s laugh, Billy’s lips turned down and angry. He sees the way Billy screamed when he laid his fist into Steve’s face before Steve saw black. He sees the emptiness of Billy’s eyes in the mall and then tears streaming down his face before he lifted his hand to save everyone. 

He never sleeps long, but he wakes with wet cheeks and hair clinging to his forehead, and he heaves dry sobs into his pillow hoping that tears will come and they don’t. They never come, because something broke when that day happened, something broke inside all of them, and tears are unnecessary. 

“I dream about him sometimes,” Steve explains, closing his eyes. “I see him with that fucking mind flayer over and over again and—” He swallows hard. “It’s hard to wake up and when I do, I’m always alone.”

Robin’s hand wraps around Steve’s and he lets her. They stand there, in the grocery store, under its fluorescent lights, in the middle of an abnormally hot summer day, holding hands. They say nothing, but it speaks volumes. The air is thick with unspoken words. 

“You should get the Doritos,” Robin says, nodding to the bags. “They’re Dustin’s favorite.”

Steve gets the Doritos.

***

“Hell yes you got Doritos!” Dustin exclaims, when he peers into the back of the van. His eyebrows wrinkle together in confusion. “Why is there a mattress?”

“For sleeping, nitwit,” Robin grunts, carrying a large box filled with supplies. “Trust me, you do not want to be traveling several hundred miles on the floor of this thing. Are you gonna help or just stand there and watch?”

“I call it supervising,” Dustin says, placing two hands on his hips and puffing out his chest. “You guys are doing swell, by the way.”

“Dustin, grab a fucking bag and help us out,” Steve grumbles, carrying several sleeping bags and unwrapping them in the back. 

They end up getting done when dusk rolls around, Robin grabbing tacos and spreading out in the living room in silent exhaustion. Tomorrow they leave for a small town in Nebraska, on roads unknown, to an address they have no idea what they will find when they get there. 

“What if it’s all bullshit?” Steve wonders aloud, speaking over the quiet hum of the television in the background. He stares at the anchor on the screen, babbling about the evening news. “What if it’s some sick prank?”

Dustin’s snoring quietly on the couch, curled up in a tight ball, an aghan he brought from home covering him. Robin sprawls in the wingback chair, her leg hanging over the arm. She’s staring at the screen, but her eyes are far away, lost in thought. Maybe she’s wondering the same thing.

“You’ll never know unless you find out,” she murmurs. She leans over and reaches for the remote and changes to something else. Saturday Night Live is on. “Have a chuckle, Steve. And get some sleep. We have a lot of driving to do tomorrow.”  
  


* * *

  


No one knows about Steve and Billy. No one knows about how Billy shows up at Steve’s place when his parents are gone, living a life without him, a life that they’ve always wanted but paused because of Steve. Steve heard it once when he was a kid, sitting on the top of the stairs to his bedroom. They were arguing about something, Steve can’t remember if you asked him now, but he remembers the growl of his mother’s voice when she said between clenched teeth, “It’s not like I asked for this, so don’t even pretend I did.”

It was then that Steve realized what resentment really meant. 

He’s grown used to the fact that he is alone, and for the longest time he told himself that he enjoyed it. But he didn’t realize that he was lying to himself, trying to survive the abandonment of his parents, trying to grow accustomed to the four walls around his house. The moment that he didn’t need a nanny anymore, she left too, replaced by nothing but silence and Steve’s thoughts. 

Billy changed all of that. 

No one knows, but Steve sees him around school. Like an ache he can’t shake, that spreads all over his body and it burns. He looks forward to the math class the share, where they both dutifully stare at the blackboard and watch Mr Horvath drone on about parabolas and hyperbolas and whatever other bolas they’re talking about. 

He doesn’t care. He’s not going to college, he’s already bunked off applications, and he knows deep down his dad will try to talk him into working for him. He remembers how he told this all to Nancy in the car, his heart blooming with hope he could have someone to take care of, someone to be there for him when he got home from work, someone that was worth doing all of this for. 

Steve wants Billy to look at him. He’s exactly two rows over from where he’s sitting, and three desks up, legs sprawled out in front of him, a bored expression on his face. Steve stares at the hanging earring, thinks about how it tastes in his mouth before he digs his teeth into the skin beneath it. He thinks about the way Billy gasps when he does that, every single time, and how his hands grip into Steve’s hair hard, begging for _more_.

When the bell rings, Steve lets out a breath of relief, and waits for the rest of the class to leave before he does. He wants to have a few seconds of quiet before he has to go back out into the sea of Hawkins High School’s society, where they know that Steve fell from social grace. He doesn’t even care anymore. Not when he’s looked monsters in the face and had death creeping up his spine. 

Billy’s leaning against the doorjamb waiting for him when he exits the classroom. Steve stops immediately, the blend of bodies rushing to class a blur in the background. Billy’s shirt is unbuttoned nearly to his navel, and the pendant of his necklace shines against the fluorescent lights. He tilts his head into the opposite direction and Steve follows.

They walk until they’re near the football field, curving around the path until they pass abandoned portables. The sun is bright and high in the cloudless sky, and the grass is wet with spring dew. Steve doesn’t know where they’re going, studies two birds circling around each other against the blue of the sky when Billy pushes him against the side of a portable, their faces inches apart.

Steve’s heart is hammering in his chest, and Billy’s breathing is uneven, his hands hot, so hot. They don’t speak, and Billy’s hands curl into Steve’s shirt tighter and Steve trembles. 

“What are you doing?” Steve manages, his mouth parting when Billy slots a leg between his. He’s half hard. 

“You realize it’s _impossible_ to concentrate with you around?” Billy says, his eyes trailing over Steve’s face, landing on his mouth. 

Steve grins. “Is that so?” 

Billy’s stare turns heated, his chest flushing against Steve’s. “Yes.” He leans forward and their lips brush together, and the panic rises in Steve’s chest, and he grips Billy’s shoulder to stop him. 

“We can’t—what if—”

Billy arches an eyebrow. “What if?”

“Well,” Steve starts and stops. He turns to the football field, to the class emerging for PE, enjoying the sunshine after months of cloudy gloom. “It’s just, well, you know.”

Billy grips Steve’s chin, firm, but not painful. “No,” he says cooly but his eyes are hard. “No, I don’t know.”

“People,” Steve whispers, and the shame that comes with it is like the undertow of the ocean. “People can—”

A furrow rests between Billy’s eyebrows, and his lips curl into a sneer. “Ah, right,” he says, his hand gripping tighter against Steve’s chin. He closes his eyes for a moment, ashamed that it’s making him hard. “What you’re saying is you don’t want to get caught. With me.”

Steve is suddenly a sophomore all over again, sitting in the car with Evan parked at the quarry, with windows steamed from their exertions, breaths uneven. He remembers the words that Even said to him, quiet and lost: “Hawkins doesn’t get people like us, Steve,” he said. “They’ll never understand.” 

“No,” Steve whispers, shaking his head. “No, it’s just—”

And then Billy vanishes, walking away without another word. Steve slumps back against the trailer, closes his eyes and tries to stop the hammering in his throat. He has the urge to get in his car and go home, hide under the sheets and sleep for years. 

He doesn’t see Billy for the rest of the day.

***

Steve doesn’t see Billy again until he ends up at a party that Sandy Wexler is throwing. Steve doesn’t even know who the fuck Sandy Wexler is, just that this party has been tossed around for about a week and a half and the whole school is talking about it. Steve hears about it from Nancy at lunch one day, with a raise of an eyebrow as if she expects Steve to go because that’s what Steve used to do—go to parties and be the center of attention.

He looks across the cafeteria, watching as Billy leans over and speaks to some chick with wild red hair that's had so much aqua net she’s probably a fire hazard. The girl tilts her head back and laughs, snuggling closer to Billy who wraps an arm around her neck and pulls her possessively closer. It makes Steve’s chest constrict in a vice grip.

So he ends up at Sandy Wexler’s house not because he wants to be a part of the crowd, wants to hear the loud music inside, or get trashed on hunch punch. He goes because he wonders if Billy will be there. He goes because he wants to see Billy again, push him against the hard brick of the house and kiss him fucking senseless. He wants to make up for the mistake he made. 

The music can be heard from half a block away, booming loud and obnoxious. Jonathan and Nancy come along, towing behind Steve and murmuring something between the two of them. It used to hurt seeing them together, like the acid sting of a wasp, but somewhere between nearly dying in a junkyard it stopped mattering. It stopped mattering when Billy kissed him in the parking lot of the mall. 

Billy’s announcing some kind of drinking game in the back, a large crowd gathering around. The redhead that Steve saw at school earlier that week is curled up against him like a fucking koala. It makes Steve want to throw up. 

“What’s going on?” Nancy asks, and Steve realizes that he’s stopped in the middle of his walk, frozen. When she sees Billy in the distance, she blinks and says, “Oh.”

“We don’t have to stay, you know,” Jonathan adds. “We can just go to the diner or something.”

“And miss out on Sandy Wexler’s spring fling party?” Steve says, all fake charisma and pep. He shakes his head. “No, it’s fine. You guys go ahead, I’ll be inside in a minute.” 

Nancy and Jonathan share that infamous silent look, that communication without words and Steve has to grit his teeth in order to not snap at them. He knows they’re worried about him because Billy is here, but they don’t understand that things have changed with Billy, that everything is different now. They don’t know that Billy curls up into a ball when he sleeps, that a permanent furrow rests between his eyes as he dreams. They don’t know what Billy looks like right before he leans in to kiss Steve’s cry away as he’s coming from Billy’s hand. They don’t know what Billy’s voice sounds like when he’s whispering confessions. 

Steve walks into the backyard, watches the way the group takes their shots, and slams them on the table with glee. The girl next to Billy stands on her tiptoes, placing a kiss on his cheek and Steve sees the frown that forms at the corner of Billy’s mouth. He stands there, in the shadow between the house and the backyard and waits. The group is setting up for another drink round when Billy sees Steve and everything freezes, everything goes silent around Steve. The raucous noise of the music inside is nothing but a dull roar over the hammering of his heart in his ears. 

He can’t do this. He can’t pretend anymore, and Steve wants to go, run away and get in his car and go to the rock quarry and just stare at the water under the moonlight. He wants to get lost in finding constellations, wants to see the changes of the earth around him shift from winter to spring. He wants to know if the air smells different. 

“Harrington,” Billy calls behind Steve, and Steve winces, ignores the shift in name. Billy doesn’t call Steve that when they’re alone, when they’re sweating on Steve’s bed, naked and panting. He doesn’t call him that in the early morning light when they’re waking up and Billy has to leave. He doesn’t call him that when they’re at the quarry alone, under the stars. 

Steve is walking up the road back to his car, breathing hard through his nose, heart hammering so hard it rattles his stomach. His ribs hurt, and his hands are clenched and he’s—he’s just so angry. He doesn’t even know what at, when in reality he’s the one that pushed Billy away. Maybe he’s angry that the Upside Down exists; maybe he’s angry that he didn’t try hard enough to get into a school somewhere far away from this bullshit excuse of a fucking town; maybe he’s angry at his dad for trying to teach him a ‘lesson’ because he didn’t turn into the son he wanted, and instead turned into a son he abandons at every moment he can. 

Maybe he’s angry that Billy Hargrove turns up whenever he wants and makes Steve believe there’s a reason to have anything at all.

And maybe Steve just wishes that he didn’t have to fight so fucking much. 

The click of boots behind Steve gets closer, and he tries to yank out of Billy’s grip, ends up losing his footing, getting twirled around and stumbling into Billy’s arms. Steve’s eyes are as wide as Billy’s, his lips parted before he schools his face into something edging on flirtatious and tempestuous all at once. He’s a storm, a tempest, and Steve is still in the wake of it all, he hates that he’s reacting to this, that he’s one part turned on, and one part absolutely incensed. 

“What do you want,” Steve grits out, grinding his teeth together until his jaw hurts. He attempts to pull out of Billy’s embrace but Billy just holds on tighter. 

“What do you think you saw back there?” 

Steve huffs out a humorless laugh. “I don’t have to think, it was obvious.” 

Billy’s eyes narrow. “Say it.”

They will not have this conversation in the middle of a random street in a neighborhood where not even three houses away the party's still going, and the music rumbles through the tar of the road. 

“Fuck you,” Steve spits, his hands gripping onto Billy’s shoulders hard. 

“Only if you ask nicely, pretty boy,” Billy taunts, lip curling into a sneer. “Say it.” 

Steve returns the smile, caustic and cruel, leans close until his lips brush against Billy’s ear. He swears his body shivers. “You looked like you were trying to forget that you had my dick in your mouth not even three days ago, that’s what it looked like.” 

Billy hisses, gripping onto the back of Steve’s hair, and yanking back until their faces sit mere inches apart. “I’m just doing what you want, Harrington,” he growls. Steve bites his lip to stop himself from slamming their mouths together. “You don’t want that? Then stop acting like a pussy.”

Then Billy pushes Steve out of their tangled grip. They’re both breathing hard, like they have just run the drills for the basketball team, and Steve’s eyes begin to sting, and everything starts collapsing around him and he can’t do this, he really can’t. He’s so tired, and all Steve wants to do is just go home and crawl under the covers and sleep for the next decade. 

“Is this some kind of game for you?” Steve asks, exhausted. “Have your fun? Great, I’m glad I could assist.” 

He heads back for his car again, shoving his hands into his pockets, one palm gripping onto the car keys. He doesn’t want to go home, not yet, with a house too cold and too empty to be alone. He considers hitting up that liquor store on the edge of town that doesn’t ID. Worst case he can find some kind of frat party to attend in Bloomington and get lost in the mayhem of a future he should be preparing for. 

But Steve doesn’t make it to his car. He doesn’t make it to his car because Billy is grabbing at him again, spinning him around so fast his vision barely settles before Billy’s mouth is hot on his, tongue slipping into Steve’s mouth, hands on his face. Billy tastes like hunch punch and stale cigarettes, and when he curls his tongue around Steve, coaxing him into the kiss, Steve moans, and grips onto Billy’s hip, pulling him closer. 

“You’re an asshole,” Steve murmurs at the same time Billy says, “Let’s get out of here,” when they break apart to breathe. 

Steve nods to his car up the road. “I’m over there.”

Billy nods, running a hand through his hair. “Your place?” 

There’s a bubble of excitement and a twist of nervousness in Steve’s stomach. “Sure.”

“Cool.”

And like that, Billy walks away into the night as if he’s made from it. Steve gets in his car, takes several fortifying breaths, and with shaking hands gets the keys in the ignition.


	5. Chapter 5

“Damn, the Midwest is boring as hell,” Dustin announces from the passenger seat. “It’s nothing but cornfields. Who needs this much corn? Honestly.” 

Robin sighs in a mixture of humor and exasperation, turning the music up a little more. _Cherrybomb_ filters into the air and Steve shuffles awake from the mattress, blinking into consciousness. He isn’t aware of how long he’d been sleeping, can’t tell if it’s night or day. Robin insisted the moment they got onto the road that Steve slept so he could take over the next shift. 

Steve stretches and rolls onto his side, gripping onto a stray pillow and pulling it close. They’ve set onto places unknown, with Robin and Dustin by his side. Mike and Lucas wanted to join too, of course, but they knew it was impossible to haul everyone and convince respective parents to leave Hawkins for an indeterminable amount of time. Dustin ultimately won, using the Scoops Troop as a trump card. 

He thought about Max when the group had their little banter about who held the highest rank with Steve. He wonders if she would’ve wanted to come along. He hasn’t seen her in a long time. Maybe she’s just like he is, wandering through the aftermath of Billy, just trying to survive. 

The sky rolls above him, swirling from blue to pink. Steve catches a hint of orange in the distance. 

“What time is it?” Steve mumbles, closing his eyes again, the hum of the tires on the road relaxing and calm. 

“Almost seven,” Robin says, tapping her fingers onto the steering wheel. “You’ve been out for most of the day.” 

Joan Jett continues to sing in the background, the crinkle of the map beneath Dustin’s hands, and the dull roar of the road beneath them. This will be their home for who knows how long. If this...journey to find if Billy is alive— _He is_ , Steve reminds himself silently, _He must be_ —this whole adventure could take them several weeks. Robin got the time off from work, waving a hand at Steve’s worries, explaining that since she is starting college at Perdue in the fall, the money is mostly just to help fund her move. Robin’s parents, from what Steve has gathered, are borderline hippies and believe in shit like freedom to explore and all that, so their daughter disappearing for a length of time on a random road trip to find the dead is nothing out of the ordinary for them.

And Dustin, God, Steve can’t imagine how Dustin convinced Ms Henderson to get in on this. He’s asked several times and each time Dustin shrugs his shoulders and says, “Skills, baby. Skills.” 

Steve had met up with Nancy for lunch between her classes at IU, told her about the insanity that is his life as she met him with wide eyes and a kind smile. She reached over her turkey sandwich and gripped at Steve’s hands, and they sat like that, in a random mom and pop shop that looked borderline scary but had the best fries Steve’s ever had, and nodded her head as if she was giving him some approval. He didn’t realize until they departed, that it was what he needed to do this, to move forward and continue on. That he needed her to understand he still believed. 

The track changes to _Private Dancer_ , and Steve smirks when Dustin expels out a groan. 

“God, do we have to keep listening to this?” Dustin demands, verging on whining. Steve doesn’t even have to peer up to see the expression settled on Dustin’s face. 

“Listen pal, Tina Turner is a goddess, and you better never forget that,” Robin says primly. “Don’t think of this as a punishment, consider it an education in female strength.”

Dustin heaves a sigh and Steve knows he’s slumped down in his chair, crossing his arms in petulance. “It would be a much better _education_ if we had better landscape.”

“Dems the breaks, baby,” Robin drawls. “And don’t you forget it.” 

Tina croons into the van, and Steve drifts back to sleep again, accompanied by his friends, Robin’s mixtape, and the corn fields of I-70.

***

Steve dreams.

He dreams about blue eyes, and hair that tickles his neck just before the morning sun comes, and calloused fingers. He dreams of panting breath, of moans whispering praise. Steve dreams of Billy inside of him, a breathless laugh before he throws his head back as he comes. 

He dreams of monster arms, of screams that never reach his throat, of sacrifice. Then the screams come, and there are tears, always tears, so many tears that Steve is blind. Hands hold him back when the Mind Flayer takes Billy one by one, slams its tentacles into his body repeatedly. Steve dreams about Max’s screams, about El’s sobs, and the numbing shock of reality that Billy has died. 

Something is touching him, the slippery chill like a wet wintery day, and Steve gasps awake, eyes wide, and heart hammering. His eyes are wet, his limbs tangled in the mess of sleeping bags as he scrambles and scrambles until he lets out of hoarse scream. He needs to run, needs to hide, needs to get the fuck away because every primal sensor in his brain is ringing an alarm at a deafening decibel. 

“Hey, hey,” Robin says in alarm. “Steve, Steve, look at me. Steve, goddamnit, _look at me_.” 

Steve blinks into reality, chest heaving, and his mouth dry. Robin’s hand brushes through his hair, and he wiggles his arms free, covering his face, opening his mouth and nothing comes out. He wants so much to scream himself raw just like he did that night, but his voice has disappeared and he hates this after dreams, when they play on a loop in his mind, raw and real. It’s waiting for the dam to break, waiting for the crack to lose its leverage, and then it comes, hot, salty, burning tears that leave Steve ashamed and scared and broken all at once.

Robin lays next to him, tucks his back to her chest, and pulls him into her arms. She’s silent, and Steve is sweating and gross. He’s shaking from the nightmare, his heart racing like he’s still in that mall wondering for the millionth time in his life if he’s going to fucking die. 

But he didn’t die. Billy did. 

When the movie reel of his dream fades, loses its emotional strength, Steve removes his hands from his face and takes a deep breath. He’s usually alone when this happens, so he jumps when Robin shifts behind him and he realizes that she’s still holding him. 

“It’s okay,” she reassures softly, wrapping a hand around his wrist and squeezing gently. “You want to talk about it?”

Steve laughs without humor. “No, I don’t.”

“Fair,” Robin agrees. Her thumb rubs against the inside of Steve’s wrist and it’s distracting. It takes a moment for Steve to realize she’s doing that on purpose. 

“I didn’t flag you as the cuddling type.”

He can hear her smile behind him, pulling away with ease. “Well, Harrington, there’s a lot you don’t know about me.”

Steve hums, pulling himself up to sit up. “A Woman of Mystery.” 

“You haven’t got a clue about women,” Robin teases. “Before you get all worried-parent on me, we’ve taken a break for a bit at a rest stop because I needed a nap and Dustin is raiding a vending machine. We may never see him again.”

Steve’s stomach drops and his face grows hot with shame. “Did I—”

Robin shakes her head, closing her eyes. “No, I had just laid down. Just need a little cat nap and I’ll be right as rain.” 

“I can take over.” 

“Nah, it’s fine,” Robin assures. “We don’t know where we will end up next so we may as well get there first, get the hotel and then figure out where this little choose your own adventure will take us.” 

Steve looks at Robin’s big blue eyes, that smattering of freckles over her face, and her hair splayed out on the mattress on the floor of Betty. He tried to convince himself in the middle of a battle with the Russians and a Mind Flayer he had feelings for her. That he cared about her like he did with Nancy because it’s easier to like girls than guys. But deep down, it was relieving when she told him how similar they were. Later, after everything was completely fucked, when she showed up to Steve’s empty house and crawled into his bed holding his hand she said, “Love is a battlefield, Harrington.” and Steve laughed wetly. 

_Love is a battlefield, Harrington. Don’t forget it._

Steve exits the van into the bright afternoon sun, in search of Dustin. He finds him on a payphone, gesticulating wildly and practically screaming with excitement. When he notices Steve he smiles wide and waves, turning his attention back into the phone.

“Dude, I gotta go, but listen I’ll call you when I get to the next stop. Yeah, okay, cool, thanks, bye.”

He hangs up the phone, and leans against the brick wall. “He’s alive! May we take a moment to revel in that which is Steve Harrington’s glory.”

Steve snorts, runs a hand through his hair. “Who were you on the phone with?”

Dustin shrugs. “Mike. Sending updates to the group.”

“How can you afford long-distance calls on a payphone?”

Dustin brandishes a calling card. “I snagged a few of these when we made a stop for gas, but you were sleeping. Did you know you snore?”

“I do not,” Steve says. His throat tightens at the memory of waking up next to Billy, a grin on his face as he said _Has anyone ever told you you snore? It’s quite distracting._

He denied it then, too. They ended up wrestling in the dawning sun, the warmth pooling at their feet, before Billy pinned Steve down onto the mattress with a smile that Steve swore Billy saved just for him. 

Steve pushes that memory away and focuses on the present. “How’s everyone?” 

“They’re okay. Mike went on about El for a solid 15 minutes. They talk, like, every day, so I guessed pretty much what he would say.” 

“Has she...been able to, you know—”

Dustin shakes his head. “Not like before, no.”

Steve nods. He hasn’t seen El since right before she moved, when everyone was a mixture of grief and relief. Grief because fighting the Upside Down always had a cost, and relief to be alive. She had showed up at Steve’s house one night, alone, when he was about halfway through a bottle of his Dad’s whisky. He thought she was an apparition, a trick of the mind, but when she walked past him and into his house as though she’d been there before, he knew she was really there. 

They didn’t talk much, just watched TV and then she told him about the memory of Billy as a boy, standing on the beach with his mother in her hat, the proud expression on her face when he caught that wave. Steve never heard of that memory before in all the late night confessions Billy had shared with him. The knowledge that it was both the one thing that saved them from damnation and also the one thing that Billy kept closest to his heart and he never told Steve was painful to swallow.

“Let’s hit the road,” Steve says to break the silence. “Robin should sleep and I’m caught up.”

“Please tell me you have another mixtape that we can listen to,” Dustin bemoans. 

“I sure do, buddy.”

Dustin fist pumps into the air. “Not that I don’t mind the whole Feminine Education from Robin, but my brain hurts. Being a woman is hard, Steve. I did _not_ understand.”

They settle into the van, Steve adjusting the seat, and pulling out one of his mixtapes. Prince fills the air, and Dustin nods in approval. 

“Here’s to more cornfields,” Steve says, and Dustin laughs. 

They drive into the sunset.  
  


* * *

  


Something changes. Billy acknowledges Steve at school, starts standing at his locker and waiting for him. They walk together to the math class they share, and people stare and Billy doesn’t notice. At least he acts like he doesn’t notice. When Nancy and Jonathan ask about it at lunch—because word gets around fast in Hawkins—Steve shrugs and says, “Things worked out, I guess.”

Nancy arches an eyebrow. “You _guess_? Steve he almost beat you to death!” 

Steve stabs his fork into the styrofoam of his lunch tray. “It’s not—It’s not what you think.”

There’s a stony silence between the three of them, and when Steve dares to glance at them, they both have worn worry on their faces. It takes herculean effort not to roll his eyes. 

“It’s complicated, okay?” 

“Complicated?” Jonathan says, nonplussed.

“Yeah, complicated,” Steve says. His eyes trail to the other side of the cafeteria where Billy sits with a group of people Steve doesn’t even know, and their eyes lock for a moment. Steve ignores the way it makes his chest tighten. 

“Steve,” Nancy intones. It makes Steve’s jaw clench. 

He sighs and shakes his head. “I’m not talking about this here.” 

“Okay,” Jonathan says quietly. “That’s okay.” 

Steve nods, studying the meal tray. His stomach is roiling at the fact he’s being exposed, the tiny realization that he has to talk about Billy Hargrove, and the way he’s swept Steve into this—this whatever it is this is they have. 

There’s the part of Steve that wants to keep it to himself. That wants to protect those nights tangled up in bedsheets and stars and a rock quarry no one in Hawkins knows about. After losing Nancy word got around fast and combined with all the other shit that went on around that time and having nothing but four walls and Steve’s thoughts in his own house—

He just wants to keep something of his own. He wants to not have to peer over his shoulder when he drops Dustin off at the arcade to hang out with his friends, or to wake up in a cold sweat, his heart hammering, thinking about reaching for the bat with nails in it. One night the nightmares were so bad Steve put new nails in to ensure that if the devil from below was coming to get him, he wouldn’t go down without a fight. 

The bell rings signaling that lunch is over, and Steve gets up without another word leaving Nancy and Jonathan alone. 

He doesn’t see Billy until after school. Steve is walking to his car when he finds Billy leaning against the driver door, hip jutted out, and arms crossed over his chest. He’s wearing his jean jacket, which has frayed a bit from overuse, and Steve’s eyes trail over the tightness of the blank tank underneath. He licks his lips. 

“Where’s your car?” Steve asks. 

“Good afternoon to you too,” Billy says, voice muffled by the cigarette in his mouth, cupping a hand around the end as he lights it. He sucks in a deep inhale and blows out a long trail of silvery smoke. “Are you off to pick up your tiny humans?”

Steve draws closer to his car, so that their bodies brush against each other. He can feel the heat of Billy’s skin, smell the stale cigarette scent on his breath, see the quirk of Billy’s eyebrow in a challenge. Steve draws closer to Billy’s face, relishing in delight as his eyes widen a little before brandishing his keys and unlocking the door to his car. 

“Yes,” Steve says, more roughly than he wants. He can’t help but focus on how Billy's tongue glides over his lips before taking another long pull off his cigarette. He blows the exhale out of the side of his mouth.

The smile that blooms on Billy’s face looks wicked and filthy. Steve’s heart skips a few beats. “And after that?” 

Steve rakes a hand through his hair to give himself something to do. “Work.” 

“Ah,” Billy says, pushing off the side of the car so that their bodies are flush. His lips brush against Steve’s ear when he speaks, his voice low and gravelly. “Then I know where to find you.”

Steve cranks down the air conditioner when he gets into the car, cold air blowing over his warm face. He scarcely hears Dustin and the crew babble as he picks them up, can hardly comprehend anything they’re arguing about. He’s distracted by the sound of Billy’s voice, the touch of his lips, and the odor of his cologne mixed with stale tobacco. 

When he gets to the ice cream shop that evening, Robin teases Steve,claiming he’s distracted, and Steve lets her get away with the jibe, shrugs and ducks his head down, focuses on the menial tasks of work. Tonight isn’t busy, being a school night in the middle of the week, so they end up spending hours doing nothing but sitting on the back counter swinging their legs above the ground. 

Every time Steve sees the glimpse of a jean jacket, the hint of curly dirty blond hair, Steve’s stomach swan dives in anticipation. Every time it turns out to be some other patron walking the mall on autopilot, Steve gets a prickle of remorse tingling over his skin. 

“You waiting for him?” Robin asks, softly, chipping away the small remnants of black polish left on her nails. Steve’s throat goes dry, and his heart hammers in his chest so hard his head spins.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Steve’s voice sounds strange in his own ears. 

Robin hums, her legs ceasing movement. The clock ticks in the corner, and Steve forces himself to glance at it for the millionth time. It’s almost closing time. 

“We better clean up,” he says, hopping down from the counter and going in the back to gather the cleaning supplies. 

They finish closing in resolute silence, and Billy never comes.

***

Steve gets home, orders pizza from the place in town that knows his order the moment they hear his voice, and takes a long hot shower. He’s still on edge that Billy didn’t stop by Scoops, stung from the broken promise and the anticipation, but worried for a deeper reason. Billy isn’t the type to back out of something, handles everything like a bull in a china shop. It occurs to Steve, as he’s settling down on the couch in nothing but a pair of sweatpants, he doesn’t even have Billy’s phone number. The only reason he knows Billy’s address is because he dropped Max off one time from the arcade.

Billy’s car wasn’t in the driveway.

At the time Steve didn’t care, too focused on the fact that he was going to Dustin’s and that Ms Henderson would insist on feeding him, which Steve has always appreciated. He enjoys cooking and all, and even knows a few recipes from when Isobel used to watch him growing up, but cooking for one is so depressing he always ends up ordering out or getting invited to the Byers, Wheelers, or Hendersons. He never seems without options. 

Steve is just beginning to watch Carson when he hears the familiar rumble of the Camaro pulling into his driveway. The lights slice through the drapes in his living room, circular beams reflecting onto the opposite wall. He doesn’t bother looking, doesn’t even bother muting the television or greeting Billy at the door like he typically does. Steve remains frozen on his couch, stuck in a purgatory between excitement and dread. 

The door rattles open with a practiced ease, and _that_ startles Steve. Billy never just walks into his house, always stands at the door and knocks and waits. Now he’s walking inside and Steve is on his feet and moving towards the foyer to find Billy in nothing but a white tank, and a busted lip and his eyes bloodshot and glassy. He smells fresh of cigarettes and beer, and it takes everything Steve has not to tug Billy close to him, to place a hand over his throat to feel the rhythm of his pulse. 

“I got held up,” Billy says, and Steve bites the inside of his lip to keep himself from cursing. He cups his hand on Billy’s chin, turning his face to one side to study the bruise blooming right under Billy’s eye in the dim lighting of the living room, then tilting his face in the opposite direction to study the scratch marks blooming on his neck. Steve doesn’t know if those will bruise, but if they don’t get ice on Billy’s jaw soon the swelling will get out of control. 

“Come on,” Steve whispers, reaching for Billy’s hand and guiding him into the kitchen. Billy squints at the brightness, hisses when the bag of vegetables curls against his face, and sighs when Steve hands him a finger of whisky in a tumbler. Billy knocks it back in one go, barely wincing at the burn. 

“Want to tell me what happened?” Steve asks, turning around and searching for some Advil in the cupboard where his parents keep the medication. There’s a variety of orange bottles that live inside, most indications of his father’s poor health and his mother’s battles with swinging depression, and he reaches into the back with blind hands until he finds the bottle he’s looking for, pulls it out and examines the label. This will work. 

“Have you ever been to California?” Billy nods and closes his eyes when Steve shakes his head. “The water there is always cold. Freezing. It’s not like the east coast where the water stays warm, apparently. I’ve never been, but my mom used to talk about it all the time— she lived in Florida for a bit when she was Max’s age.” 

Steve doesn’t move and says nothing. He knows that something big is happening, that Billy is choosing to confess this small bit of himself. Billy has never talked about California, never mentioned his mom before. He doesn’t want to lose this. 

“We used to go swimming all the time,” Billy continues, slouching against the kitchen counter, pulling the frozen vegetables away from his face and examining the bag as if it somehow holds all these memories he’s revealing. “She loved the ocean. But it was always cold, she said. Always cold.” 

“Do you miss it?” 

Billy shrugs. “Not really.” 

Steve knows it’s a lie. The nonchalant shrug mixed with the frown on Billy’s mouth shows he doesn’t want to admit the truth. Steve knows all about the game of ignoring truths. He had shrugged off the pain at the realization that his love for Nancy was unreciprocated and had to swallow the even bigger pill that she ended up with Jonathan, anyway. He won’t push Billy, not when he’s holding onto a thawing bag of frozen grocery, his face fucked up, and his eyes deep with a profound wistfulness that it makes Steve’s heart clench. 

“Where is she now?” Steve asks softly. Billy tilts his head and Steve adds, “Your mother.” 

The words sit heavy and dumb in his mouth, thick and sour. Billy glares at the soggy bag of veggies, now dripping condensation down his arm and onto the floor. He squeezes the bag, his jaw clenching.

“Who the fuck knows. Gone.” 

He tosses the bag into the sink with more force than necessary. Steve doesn’t take his eyes off of Billy, draws closer so that their chests pressed together. He grazes his lips over the blooming contusion, flicks his tongue onto the wound. It tastes metallic and tangy, Billy’s cologne sharp and fragrant. Billy’s hands grip onto Steve’s hips, bruisingly hard. 

“What are you doing?” Billy gasps when Steve’s teeth grave over Billy’s neck right at the pulse point. He sucks on the skin, his tongue filled with the salty taste of sweat. 

Steve pulls back, eyes searching over Billy’s face, his lips brushing over Billy’s mouth. He flicks his tongue along the fat bottom lip, smiles when Billy groans, his grip growing stronger on Steve’s hips. 

“What do you want?” Steve asks. “Tell me what you want.” 

Billy’s eyes look dazed, his eyelids at half-mast. His hand knots into Steve’s hair, and he leans over and pushes their lips together, softly. It’s so unlike Billy who always dominates when he kisses, presses teeth and tongue and everything he can. He kisses like he’s got something to prove. But right now he’s not doing that at all and it’s sending Steve spinning. 

“Fuck, my fucking mouth hurts,” Billy mutters, shaking his head in frustration. “I want—” he stops, his eyes downcast, a small bit of hair fall over his face. “I want to stay.” 

Warmth blooms all over Steve, right to his toes, and he bites his cheek hard to stave off the smile that threatens his lips. He reaches for Billy’s wrist, giving it a gentle tug towards the stairs leading to his room. “Okay,” he says. “Then stay.”


	6. Chapter 6

Robin’s still asleep in the back, the blanket and pillows twisted around her. The roads are clear and the sun is setting against the sky. Nothing but blooming cornfields all the way to the horizon. Steve’s managed a comfortable position for the long drive, calculating when they’ll make the Nebraskan border, and judging it’ll be sometime early in the morning. 

“All I’m proposing is that if we allow a third party to drive, we will make it to our destination in a quarter of the total time,” Dustin states matter-of-fact. “I’ve done some calculations—”

“You’ve actually calculated the time difference?”

Dustin levels a stare. “Steve, what the fuck else am I to do? It’s nothing but your mixtapes and cornfields. I’ve already blown through my back log of comics, come up with a character for Will’s new campaign when he visits next month, and we still have miles ahead of us!” 

Steve chuckles and nods. “Dustin, you’re not driving.”

“But—”

“Seriously, buddy, as much as I love your enthusiasm, let the licensed parties take over.” 

“Fine,” Dustin says, crossing his arms over his chest, staring out into the cornfields. “Can I at least have a rotation of mixtapes?”

Steve flicks a brief glance to Dustin. “You brought...mixtapes?”

Dustin rolls his eyes. “Duh. What’s the point in agreeing to this romantic adventure if I cannot at least bring along some tuneage?”

He has a point. 

“Yeah, sure, man, that’s cool.” Dustin continues to study the map underneath them, a finger tracing along the highlighted trail to lands unknown. Steve realizes they’re running low on gas and sighs. 

“We need to find an exit soon. I don’t know how long Betty’s gonna continue running on steam before she gives up.”

“Do not diss my girl like that,” Robin says groggily from the back. “She’s got a solid forty miles before she decides to make a dramatic stop.”

“Ah, Robin, you are awake,” Dustin says with an over-bright enthusiasm. “I was chatting with Steve about how we could cut our travels down by a quarter if you just allow me to—”

“No,” Robin says, cutting Dustin off. “You can barely drive a fucking golf cart much less my girl. Get back with me in about two years and we will discuss you taking the wheel.” 

“Traitor,” Dustin grumbles. 

_Under Pressure_ plays through the speakers, and Steve turns up the volume, the sounds of Bowie and Mercury filling the air. Dustin does the skat parts, while Robin offers the higher bits of Freddie’s operatic voice, and Steve takes over for Bowie. When they hit the bridge, Dustin and Robin do a dramatic version of the high octave yell. Steve bobs his head to the beat. 

“Can’t we give ourselves one more chance!” Dustin booms, his eyes squeezed shut, clenching a fist. “Why can’t we give love now one more chance?”

“Why can’t we give love, give love, give love,” they sing in unison, Robin placing a hand on each of their shoulders, squeezing as they go into the next verse. 

“This is ourselves...under pressure,” they continue drawing back and leaning close to each other and singing, “Pressure.” A pause. “Pressure.” 

The piano croons until the song ends and Steve feels a bubble of laughter rise inside of him that he can’t contain. He glances at Dustin and Robin, their faces bright and happy, wide smiles and tired eyes, but they’re doing this, and they’re doing it together. 

“Hell yeah!” Dustin says with a fist pump, pointing to the exit. “Speaking of pressure: Pull off ASAP, Steve because I have to piss like a racehorse and I don’t want to resort to primitive uses when we have a welcoming gas station waiting for us.”

Robin makes a noise of disgust. “Thanks for that.”

Dustin beams, his goofy smile stretching over his face. “No problem!” He pauses, turning to the side, his hand gripping onto his seat. “But just in case—” 

“I have a coffee can if there’s an emergency,” Robin finishes.

“Wait, what?” Steve demands. “A coffee can? What the hell ever happened to just pulling off the side of the road?”

He can almost hear Robin rolling her eyes. “I know your exhibitionism streak is profound but when duty calls…”

“You always need a plan, Steve,” Dustin says. “Have I taught you nothing?”

Steve rolls his eyes as he pulls into the gas station, a dilapidated two story wooden framed building. It’s the only sign of life surrounding them. Dustin shuffles into his backpack and grabs his walkie talkie. 

“I’m taking this in case of anything suspicious,” Dustin says. Robin grabs for her walkie talkie and turns it on. Dustin disappears around the side of the building, in search of the restroom. 

Normal people would have made fun of Dustin, jesting at the fact that his suspicions and fear about being in the middle of nowhere in uncharted territory was just a sign of watching too many horror flicks. But the three of them have been through far more insane circumstances than some crazy gas station, and when Dustin suggested they bring the walkie talkies, no one argued. 

Robin disappears inside to pay, and Steve gets the van prepared. A warm breeze blows through, spinning up dirt and debris, and Steve watches a tiny tornado of leaves and trash gather around on the concrete, spinning with a magical force. It appears there’s nothing here for miles, just this gas station, sitting alone with its memories, its history. 

“Do you need help?” Robin teases, leaning against the car, her long legs stretched out in front of her. Steve shakes his head and begins pumping the gas. “Dustin’s inside grabbing ‘provisions’.” She uses her fingers to emphasize Dustin’s quest. “We may never see him again.”

Steve focuses on the numbers turning over as he fills the tank. “You didn’t have to do this,” Steve says. Robin furrows her eyebrows. “Come along on this ridiculous...whatever the fuck we are doing. You’ve got more important stuff going on.”

Robin tilts her head. “Oh yeah? Like what?”

Steve shrugs. “College. Moving. Finding a girlfriend.” 

The silence stretches for a long time. It’s uncomfortable. Robin sighs, and brushes a hand through Steve’s hair. “You’re an idiot,” she says, heavy with affection. “I’m flattered that you think you’re impeding my ability to live a normal life with this wild goose chase to find your dead boyfriend—” Steve winces at the word _boyfriend_ — “But we’re in this together. It’s what friends do.”

The gas pump clicks, and Steve occupies himself with finishing up his task. It’s also when Dustin appears with a bag brimming with Jolt, chips and God knows what else. 

“Jesus,” Steve says, eyeing the bag. “What the hell is in there?”

Dustin shrugs. “Energy.”

Steve furrows his eyebrows. “Energy?”

“Listen, I can’t drive, right? So the least I can do is be the helpful navigator on this epic journey into madness. Think of me as the trusty sidekick. Your handler. The second billing character in a movie that doesn’t get enough credit. Take your pick.”

Robin snorts, reaching into the bag and grabbing a pop. “Come on, sidekick, it’s time we take the wheel.”

When they get back onto the road, Steve listens to Robin and Dustin bicker over who’s in control of the music, and he closes his eyes, letting his body move to the rhythm of the road and the calming music of Robin’s mixtape. 

He doesn’t know when they’ll make it to the middle of nowhere Nebraska or what will greet them, but at least he knows he won’t be doing it alone.

***

Alliance, Nebraska is a place of obscurity that lacks anything noteworthy. According to Dustin, who has researched their destination, Alliance has a population of less than nine thousand, and is home to an unusual landmark: Carhenge, a replication of England’s Stonehenge but with cars.

“It’s a memorial for the artist’s father,” Dustin explains as they pull into the first random motel that they find. The vacancy light flickers, and Steve hopes that the rooms are clean. He’s too tired to give a shit about where they sleep but he refuses to pay for a roach motel. “So we could check it out.”

“Sure,” Steve says, tiredly, pulling the van into park. Dustin’s hopped up on about sixteen cans of Jolt and Steve doesn’t have the energy to regulate his pseudo dad duties on him right now. They’ve just driven about four hours straight with a quick toilet break, and Steve has been subsisting on a mix of cheetos, coffee, and coca-cola, so his body is crashing. He needs a shower, a good night’s sleep and real food. 

The lady at the front desk looks as weathered as the hotel. The lobby is dated but clean. She explains that there’s a diner a block away that serves breakfast all day, recommending their daily specials and gives them the keys to their room. She doesn’t even think twice that a group of kids barely into adulthood are asking for a hotel room. Small mercies. 

The room has two full size beds covered in thin chintzy blankets. It smells worn and dusty but it’s clean and has a TV which Dustin announces is a win. Steve cranks down the large air conditioning unit to help get air in the room, pulling back the heavy curtain so it can stop blocking the flow. Dustin flops down on one bed, bouncing back up and cupping his hands behind his head, crossing his feet at the ankle.  
“Comfy,” he states, reaching up to yank off his hat and settling it onto the small table next to him. 

“You get the kid,” Robin announces as she enters the bedroom, carrying a variety of duffle bags, plonking two of them down on the bed Dustin is laying on before doing the same to the unaccompanied bed. 

Steve expels a resigned sigh. “Okay,” he says. “But we rotate. It’s not fair that you get the bed alone by yourself.” 

“Uh, the kid is right here,” Dustin declares, his eyes closed, hands resting on his stomach. “And the kid is fifteen thank you very much, so can you please quit it with the parental voices? Worst-case scenario I’ll just sleep in the van.”

“No,” Robin and Steve say in unison. Dustin opens one eye, glancing between them. 

“Jesus you guys are a drag sometimes,” Dustin mutters. “Fine, we switch. But it’s unfair that I have to sleep with someone all the damn time. If I gotta cuddle with you two, then you can allow me a bit of a break.” 

Steve rifles through his bag and pulls fresh sleepwear and boxers. Robin is going through the channels trying to find something to watch. Dustin and Robin bicker about choices and Steve makes his way into the small bathroom and turns on the water. It fills with steam and he sits on the toilet, letting it take over his senses for a bit.

The water burns on his skin, and the soap is damn near industrial. His hair feels like straw when he’s finished washing it and Steve sighs when he looks at it in the mirror. They will need to stop at a store because it will be a cold day in hell when Steve shows up at some address in the middle of nowhere Nebraska and doesn’t have his signature look in place. 

Robin is on the spare bed, flicking through the channels until she settles on some late night news. “There’s nothing to watch,” she says with a sigh, tossing the remote next to her. Dustin is already asleep, curling against the extra pillow on the bed. 

“I’m without a pillow,” Steve announces, watching Dustin’s even breaths. “Hey, Jesus!” Steve snaps, when a pillow hits his head by surprise and falls to the floor. 

“It’s not my fault you weren’t paying attention,” Robin retorts, a smug smile on her face. The room is covered in a sickly yellow glow from the single lamp on the small bedside table. It casts the walls in an unpleasant hue. Steve is so tired and they haven’t even started yet. 

“You all right?” Robin asks. Steve sits down at the end of the bed with a sigh. 

“I don’t know. All of this seemed like a good idea at first, but what the fuck will we do? Just drive to this address and what? Knock on the door? What if it’s some crazy person?” 

“Well, we took on the Russians not even a year ago, and a mind-flying alien, I think we can handle civilians,” Robin says smoothly, and Steve gives her a hard stare. “Okay, okay,” Robin amends, lifting her hands up in surrender. She rolls her neck to the ceiling, “Look, we’ve come this far, right? What’s the worst that will happen? We drive by this place and you decide it’s not worth it and we turn around and go home. Nice bonding trip.”

“And best case?” 

Robin shrugs, eyes leveling with Steve’s. “Or, best case, we find out what the hell this means, and we get answers.” She sits in silence for a few beats. “And we find Billy.” 

Steve avoids eye contact when he hears the last part. He knows there’s a part of him that worries it’s all just a giant ruse, that he took a total chance on a dream, that Billy is stuck in a place that isn’t the Upside Down, where monsters live. That he’s in the space beyond the living in all dimensions of existence. There’s a part of him that says that this is worthless, and that he’s clinging onto a false sense of hope. But Steve doesn’t want to listen to that voice anymore; he’s been listening to it since the day Billy sacrificed himself to the Mind Flayer and saved the world, and he’s been doing nothing but living out his days in a numb repeat. 

“Let’s get some sleep,” Robin instructs, turning off the television. They get into their beds, and the light flickers off, and Steve stares at the ceiling, watching the street light outside peak through.

“Before we go anywhere,” Steve begins with a serious tone, “I have got to get some hair product. I refuse to show up with horrible hair.”

Robin snorts a laugh, the bed squeaking as she moves. “Goodnight, Steve.” 

Steve closes his eyes and smiles. “Night.”  
  


* * *

  


The song ends on the tape, leaving the room in nothing but calm silence. Steve is lying on his bed next to Billy, waiting for his breath to even out, for his heart to slow down. His concentration is hazy in that post orgasmic way, and as he scratches his stomach, he winces at the discovery of dried come. Billy is holding a joint, a makeshift ashtray that was a pottery bowl his mom made in a random art class she took last summer resting on his stomach. He lifts the joint to his mouth and takes a long drag, the end burning bright as the paper sizzles away. His hair is damp on the sides, but he looks relaxed. Steve’s chest aches.

Billy offers the joint to Steve, and he takes a long hit, sucking in the heady sweet smoke as it fills his chest. He hands the joint back to Billy who snuffs it out, setting the ashtray onto Steve’s bedside table. He doesn’t know where Billy got the weed from, just showed up tonight with a baggie full of pre-rolled joints. 

Steve closes his eyes as the tension of his muscles dissipates, the chatter in his brain vanishing. He feels loose-limbed and carefree. Billy shifts next to him, an arm laying across his stomach. Steve likes the weight of that too, likes the comfort in safety. It’s in moments like this when they’re both coming down from the post fuck intoxication that Billy gets the most handsy. He always ends up curling against Steve, his body radiating warmth, fingers trailing over Steve’s skin until gooseflesh shows. 

But the silence is grating, an uncomfortable thrum that buzzes underneath, deep in Steve’s muscles. Billy’s occupying himself with his mouth on Steve’s shoulder, his lips trailing up to his neck. Steve shudders at the graze of teeth, sighs at the hot breath on his ear. 

“I need to get up.” 

“No you don’t.” 

“I want to put something else on,” Steve explains, wrapping a hand around Billy’s wrist. “Maybe it’ll give you inspiration.”

Billy pulls back and raises an eyebrow. “I don’t need inspiration,” he says, his hand slipping underneath the sheet, wrapping a palm around Steve’s somewhat uninterested cock. Steve’s eyes flutter shut at the sensation, biting his bottom lip to stop him from groaning. Billy’s works his mouth on Steve’s neck and when he squeezes hard, Steve gasps. 

“Oh God,” Steve says, his voice ragged and raw. Billy doesn’t stop, and Steve’s dick definitely becomes interested again. He’s not normally one to go for a second round so soon, but with Billy nothing is normal. With Billy everything changes, including how Steve’s dick functions, it seems. 

Billy scoots closer, his erection sliding against Steve’s hip, his mouth working over his chin, licking at the side of his mouth. Steve turns towards Billy’s enthusiastic tongue, their mouths connecting on a moan. Steve adjusts himself until he’s on his side, grabs a hold of Billy’s wrist to make him stop, and breaks the kiss. He wants something, but is too scared to ask for it, and if he’s distracted by Billy’s mouth he’ll never say it. A silence stretches for a few moments and then Billy’s hand is working on Steve again, squeezing at the head just as he likes, and his brain short-circuits.

“Fuck,” Steve says breathlessly, “Oh, God, oh God,” and Billy chuckles, low and wicked. He adjusts himself on one elbow, nudging Steve with his leg until he’s on his back. Steve tugs on Billy’s shoulder so he can straddle him, and when Billy’s settled on top, his dick jutting out, chest flushed, his necklace dangling over Steve’s face is when Steve breaks, and says, “Fuck me.”

Billy rears back, his eyes wide with surprise, and then gone in a flash. The room sways like Steve’s on a boat, his muscles putty from the weed, but somewhere deep in his brain, he wonders if he made a mistake with his request. They’ve shared countless hand jobs and more than enough blow jobs, and on one occasion, a mindblowing orgasm from Billy slipping a finger inside of his ass as he sucked Steve dry.

Paranoia creeps in on the edges of his mind and Steve realizes what he’s said, the flush of shame flooding his body. 

“Oh shit,” he whispers, covering his face with his hands. “God, this is awkward.”

Billy snorts. Steve peers through his fingers, watching Billy roll his neck and adjust his position. He reaches for Steve’s hands, pulling them away, and for whatever reason that makes Steve giggle which evolves into full-blown laughter. Billy shakes his head, pins Steve’s wrists above him, their faces mere inches apart. Their noses brush against each other, Billy’s eyes bloodshot and hooded. Steve doesn’t know if it’s from the drugs or the fact he’s turned on, but it doesn’t matter because when Billy grinds down and their dicks brush against each other, they both moan at the same time.

“Did you mean it?” Billy asks in that low grumble that shows nothing but unadulterated arousal. Steve shifts under Billy’s tight hands, swallows around the spiky feeling in his throat and nods, unable to produce any words. 

“All right.” Billy lifts, his fingers tracing down Steve’s arms and splaying on his chest. He licks his lips, catching the bottom one between his teeth, eyebrows furrowed in concentration. 

“Have you ever—” Billy starts, and Steve shakes his head. Billy flicks his gaze over to the bedside table, reaches for the knob on the top drawer, pulling it out to find his impressive supply of condoms, lube, and lotion. Billy gives an approving nod and reaches into the drawer, pulling out the lube. Steve’s stomach flips with a mixture of nerves and excitement. 

“Don’t look so freaked,” Billy says, a leering smile stretching on his face. “We’re not doing that today.”

Steve blinks in confusion, at how Billy said _today_. It means that they will without a doubt do it in the future which means... 

“Wait, what?” 

Billy chuckles. It’s not kind, and Steve watches as he starts pouring a fuckload of lube into his hand. “Contrary to what you think, Harrington, there are other ways to fuck someone.”

Steve resists rolling his eyes. “Yeah, I know, jackass.”

Billy slips a hand between Steve’s legs, spreading a liberal amount of lube on his thighs. In Steve’s weed-doused buzzed mind, it takes a few moments to realize what the hell Billy is doing. Steve lifts himself up onto his elbows, watching Billy squeeze more lube onto his hand. A large portion of it falls onto Steve’s dick, and he hisses at the chilly liquid dripping down the side of his aching erection.

“Whoops,” Billy says unrepentantly, his mouth curling on the side. He slicks up his cock, mouth going slack, hooded eyes fluttering shut. Steve watches that earring dangle as Billy jerks himself off faster, how he sucks his bottom lip and bites down hard. Steve’s dick twitches, desperate for some attention. When he reaches for it, Billy bats his hand away. 

“Not yet,” he commands, lifting his hips up, squeezing his knees into Steve’s thighs, silently instructing him to squeeze them closer. Billy places his hands on either side of Steve’s head, a devilish smile creeping across his face. Then the silky slide of something hard glides between his thighs, and Billy breathes out a shuddering sigh. It’s then that, through the fog in Steve’s mind, he realizes Billy is— 

“Holy shit,” Steve moans in awe. His hands rest on Billy’s hips, and he presses his thighs tighter, and feels his stomach dip when he earns a low guttural moan. Billy rolls his hips, lifting his head and clenching his eyes shut. He’s never done this with anyone before, and it’s by far the most intimate sex he’s ever had. He can’t lose himself in the mechanics, can’t drift off and ignore what’s in front of him, too overwhelmed with the thrill of Billy’s dick between his thighs and the hitch of his breath as he picks up speed. 

Steve’s nails dig into Billy’s hips, pushing him down deeper, and Billy buries his face into Steve’s neck, huffs of hot breath tickling his neck. Their bodies slide together, Steve’s cock trapped between them, and he groans, unable to control the volume of his voice. Billy is babbling, nonsensical words, and it leaves Steve spinning and imbalanced. He wants more. 

Steve can barely register what he’s saying as he raises his lips to Billy’s ear, licks over that fucking earring and whispers, “Do it, c’mon, do it for me, I want to feel it all over—”

Billy rips out a groan, his teeth biting into Steve’s shoulder, hips rutting faster as he rides the rest of his orgasm out. The friction of Billy’s stomach against Steve’s aching cock is enough to bring him over the edge, arching under the weight of Billy’s body and crying out in surprise as he comes.

Billy slumps on top of Steve without warning, knocking the breath out of Steve’s lungs in one gusty wheeze. Billy’s snicker is loud in his ear, and Steve rolls his eyes, guiding a hand through Billy’s hair at the nape of his neck, his fingers stilling at the tight muscle just above his shoulders. He gives it a hard squeeze, earning a pleased moan. 

Steve smirks, and flattens his hand between Billy’s shoulder blades, the damp skin sticking to his palm. Billy shifts a little, the stickiness between Steve’s legs growing cold and gross, and he doesn’t even want to consider what will happen when they pull apart. But right now, in this moment, Billy is pliant and relaxed and smiling against his collarbone and it uncoils something tight inside of Steve, leaving a warm glow in its place. 

Time passes, but Steve doesn’t know for how long. Their breathing syncs up together, soft and even, and Steve closes his eyes, ignores the sticky itchy of come on his body and wraps his arms around Billy’s shoulders, squeezes him closer. For just another moment. 

“I need a shower,” Steve says eventually. He peers down at Billy and grins. “You do too.”

“Need more incentive than that to get out of this comfortable position,” Billy mutters. 

Steve hums, searching for Billy’s mouth, pressing their lips together. The kiss is lethargic and lazy, slow and hot, and it makes Steve’s toes curl into the mattress. 

“I can think of a few things to show you,” Steve murmurs. Billy pulls back, tilting his head to the side with a curious quirk of his brow. 

“Well, lead on, Macduff.”

Steve wrinkles his nose in confusion, unable to place the reference. Billy chuckles low, climbing off of him and making his way towards the door. Steve stares at Billy’s naked body, the ease in which he walks around, the ever present confidence as he rolls his shoulders. He does a half turn and looks at Steve, eyebrows raised to say _Well?_

They end up staying in the shower until the hot water runs lukewarm, kissing and memorizing their bodies all over again, because they’ve never done this before and it’s new. Billy’s skin tastes different under the water, but the weight of his cock still feels the same on Steves tongue, and he takes his time, knees aching and jaw protesting, allowing himself a break by filling his recovery with dirty talk. To Steve’s surprise Billy widens his stance and permits Steve to brush a finger over his entrance, and as he pushes it inside slow and dry, it’s then that Billy comes with a shocked painful gasp, all over Steve’s chin and cheek. 

He pulls Steve up and kisses him, hard and passionate, and the thought of Billy tasting himself in Steve’s mouth makes his knees weak. 

“You are one filthy motherfucker, you know that?” Billy says, and Steve huffs a sleepy laugh and retorts, “Takes one to know one, dude.”


	7. Chapter 7

Dustin is the first one to get up the next morning, grumbling to himself as he makes his way to the bathroom. Steve bolts up, awake, confused for several moments before he sees Robin stirring in the other bed and stretching out. She rubs her eyes and turns towards Steve. 

“Get any sleep?”

Steve shrugs. Robin narrows her eyes and Steve sighs. “A little.”

“Nightmares?”

Steve shakes his head. “Nerves, I think.” 

“Ah,” Robin says. She shifts until she sits, leaning against the ragged headboard. “Worried it’ll not live up to your expectations?” 

In truth, Steve doesn’t know what he’s nervous about. He’s been running on apathy and numbness for so long that the fact he’s experiencing anything at all is new and startling. The shower turns on in the bathroom, and Robin rolls her eyes to the ceiling. 

“I really have to go pee.”

“Knock on the door and see if he’s in the shower already.”

Robin wrinkles her nose. “I think I’d rather wait.”

Steve pulls a face. “You have a coffee can for ‘emergencies’ in your car. Which is disgusting.”

“Oh please. _You_ took a leak off the side of an elevator,” Robin retorts. 

“Desperate times call for desperate measures. I refuse to piss in a can when there’s excellent landscape for the taking.”

“Oh fuck it,” Robin mutters, pulling back the blanket, and ambling to the bathroom. She knocks on the door loudly, earning a curse in response. “Listen, dweeb, I gotta take a piss and I’m coming in. No flashing or jacking off, got it?”

Dustin mutters something in return that Steve can’t make out over the rattling of the air conditioner, and Robin tilts her head up to the ceiling as if she’s calling strength from above before going in. Steve laughs, gets out of bed and gets dressed.

***

They end up at the diner suggested to them mainly because it’s the only food source in the seeable perimeter, so they don’t have much of a choice. The food tastes good, really good, and Dustin hums happily as he takes an enormous bite from his stack of syrupy pancakes.

“This is the best decision we have made so far,” Dustin says around a mouthful of food. Robin wrinkles her nose behind her cup of coffee. She’s got her hair up in a sloppy ponytail, wearing a men’s ribbed tank and loose jeans with her combat boots. A small smudge of eyeliner sits on the corner of her eye, and when Dustin wiggles his eyebrows she laughs. 

“It’s a good thing you’re useful,” Robin states. “Or I would not indulge these gross habits of yours.” 

Dustin purrs in return, and Steve winces. 

“Dude, I thought we’ve talked about this,” he says.

Dustin points fork at Steve. “You cannot regulate me Steve Harrington. The only reason we are on this magical journey is because of my incredible sleuth skills. For this you owe me at least six purrs.”

Robin looks between Dustin and Steve, setting her coffee down. “I’m not even going to ask.”

“It’s really best you don’t,” Steve agrees, stabbing into a random pile of home fries. He swirls the potatoes around a large pile of ketchup, and remembers the one time he took Billy to the diner in Hawkins, a dusky sun shadowing the clouds in orange, a sleepy smile on Billy’s face. Steve knew something shifted that day, something huge and profound, and he shoves that emotion away, into the recesses of his mind and heart so he doesn’t make the mistake of telling his friends the day he realized he was beginning to fall in love. 

He stares out into the window, at the vast stretch of green in the distance mixed with patches of brown earth. The light is white-bright on the black road, the summer sun covering over every inch of earth. It looks nothing like that time in the diner. It looks exposed and harsh and too bright. 

“Okay, we ready?” Steve asks.

“Let’s blow this popsicle stand,” Dustin announces, sliding out of the booth.

“It’s gonna be a long day,” Robin mutters and Steve laughs.

***

The address is a small farmhouse on the outskirts of the tiny silent town. It’s peeling white paint, and dry rotted porch leaves something to be desired, but the stretch of land surrounding it is endless. Steve spots two young children in the distance climbing up a rope ladder into the tree house nestled in a large oak that hangs over the side of the home.

He clenches the steering wheel hard as they continue down the long winding dirt path, parking far away from the house. He’s sure someone will see them, and Steve has to swallow around the tightness in his throat, tries to calm the hammering of his heart. His body thrums with adrenaline and the last time he went through this was when he was standing in the middle of a junkyard begging for monsters to come out and find him. 

“It’s a house,” Dustin whispers. 

“What did you expect?” Robin asks, her voice just as soft.

Something about the house reflects all of Steve’s emotions: on the verge of dilapidation, just holding itself together, but the bright plants and the new swing signifies something else altogether. It signifies possibility. 

Steve jolts the car into park and says, “Let’s go.”

They walk up the stairs to the front door that hangs open, the only thing shielding it from the outside world a ragged screen door. There’s soft music playing somewhere in the back, a long hallway stretching into the far reaches of the house. The floors are wooden and dark brown, polished shiny. A warm breeze tickles the air. Steve smells lavender. 

Robin rings the doorbell, and they’re greeted with silence. She then begins to knock on the wood-rotten screen door, causing it to rattle. A soft female voice calls, “Hold on!” in the distance, and Steve reaches for Robin’s hand instinctively to ground him. 

If someone were to ask Steve what he expected, he would say that maybe he thought he’d see Billy walking towards him. He’d look the same as the last day they spent together in Steve’s room, relaxed and asleep, warm and beautiful. That was the last day he saw Billy before everything shifted and changed, that last day they spent together. 

What he doesn’t expect is to see a woman who looks nothing like Billy, except for one part. What he doesn’t expect is to see Billy’s eyes staring at him from someone else’s face, confused and curious. 

“Can I help you?” the woman asks. Her hair is curly and wild, held together by what must be a pound of hairspray. When the wind blows again, Steve gets a whiff of the familiar scent of hair products that Billy used. He’s dizzy.  
Dustin talks and Steve can’t hear a damn thing he says. Words like “received in the mail” and “this address” permeate through Steve’s muddled brain, and before he knows it they’re let inside, guided into a small living room that smells musty and old, and sitting down on a lumpy couch with too many pillows. It’s warmer inside than it is outside, and the fan that’s oscillating in the corner does nothing to the sweat dripping down Steve’s back. 

“What did you say your names were?” the woman asks, her eyes cautious. 

“I’m Robin,” Robin introduces herself. “This is Steve and Dustin.”

“You can call me Sheryl,” the woman answers, tucking her leg under her knee. “Can I get y’all something to drink?” 

“No, we’re fine, ma’am," Dustin replies. 

They sit in stony silence for a few beats, and Steve squeezes his hands on his knees. There’s sweat forming on his palms, and his heart begins racing faster as each second ticks by. 

Finally Sheryl speaks. “You said that you received something in the mail?” she asks, her eyebrows crease together in confusion. “And that—”

“It was in Billy’s handwriting, yes,” Robin finishes. 

Sheryl takes a deep sigh and closes her eyes. “I don’t know how that’s possible,” she says, with a disbelieving shake of her head. “They told me... they told me that—” she cuts herself off, heaving in a shaky intake of breath. “He’s gone.”

Steve looks out to the children in the back, running around the tree and chasing each other. They’re waving their hands up and down enthusiastically, the chorus of their tiny laughs floating against the warm breeze that permeates the house. 

Why would Billy send him here to his mother? Why here in the middle of nowhere Nebraska, in some random fucking town that has two gas stations and a lot of shitty houses with nothing in between? Steve wishes he could scream into Billy’s face, ask all the questions he’s been holding within himself for a year. Wishes he could find the answers he deserves. Instead he’s inside this old house, on an uncomfortable sofa with a hot summer breeze. 

“He’s not gone,” Steve says into the silence. He turns to look at her, into those blue eyes that Steve memorized long ago. They’re different too, weathered and worn around the edges, but it’s without a doubt that Billy got them from her. “I don’t know why we’re here, but this—” Steve pulls out the paper in his pocket, passing it over to the woman, “This brought us here.”

Sheryl studies the worn paper, the creases pulling apart at the edges, her eyes brimming with tears. She covers her mouth with her hand, shoulders shaking with emotion. Steve balls his hands into his lap and takes several fortifying breaths. 

“Oh my God,” she whispers, staring down at the paper in disbelief. “It’s—I—” Her eyes lift to Steve’s. “You say this is his handwriting?”

Steve nods. 

“Hold on one moment. Dont—Don’t go anywhere,” Sheryl says, standing up quickly, the paper fluttering onto the floor from her lap, forgotten. Dustin bends over and picks it up, staring down at the address. 

“Holy shit,” Dustin hisses when she leaves the room. “Did any of you expect this? Cause I sure as hell didn’t.”

Robin shakes her head. “Steve... did you—”

“No,” Steve murmurs, staring at a worn patch on the wooden floor. “He never... talked about her. Not really. I assumed she like, you know…”

“Died?” Dustin supplies, and Steve snorts. 

“Your tact is so impressive,” Steve says, sighing and slumping back into the sofa with a sigh. The pillows are flat from wear, and it brings up a puff of dust that makes Robin sneeze. “But yeah, I just figured that, I don’t know. I didn’t think she just... gave up.” 

Dustin opens his mouth and then smiles, over-enthusiastic. Sheryl walks back into the room, settling down on the chair again and clutching onto a yellowed envelope. Her eyes look wet and her face is blotchy. She must have been crying. 

“I got this in the mail about six months ago. I didn’t understand what it was telling me. But I just... kept it.” She shoves the envelope out to the trio, and Robin takes it. Steve watches her flip the envelope over with careful ease, her chipped nail polish brushing the envelope’s edge and pulling out the paper. 

It’s Billy’s handwriting again. It’s written in script, a single stanza of words in the middle of the page. At the very bottom it says: _he will come to collect this. give it to him._

_It's a hell of a place that he has for hell  
The heat in the summers are hundred and ten  
Too hot for the devil, too hot for men  
The red pepper grows upon the banks of the brook_

“I didn’t know what it was at first,” Sheryl whispers. “But it’s a lyric from Johnny Cash. I bought the album the next day,” she says with a sad smile. “I listen to it a lot, hoping I could find him...” Sheryl trails off and nods to the paper. “Keep it. Wherever it’s meant to take you, I hope you find it.” 

“Are you sure?” Robin asks, her eyes wide with surprise. “We can just copy down the—”

“No,” Sheryl says. “Keep it.” Her eyes remain on Steve and he shifts uncomfortably on the couch. She lifts a finger to the corner of her eye, wiping away tears from her thick mascaraed eyelashes. “I think he wanted you to have it.” 

They leave just as the children from outside run in demanding something for lunch. They look like carbon copies of each other. Twins, Steve realizes. They’re young, no older than ten at the very least, with almost black hair and dark brown eyes. Neither of them resemble Billy at all. Something about that clenches in Steve’s chest. 

“This is Ivy and Willa,” Sheryl says. “Can you both say hello?” 

“Hi,” Dustin says with a wave. “Your treehouse is awesome.”

“Thanks!” one twin says with enthusiasm. “Our Dad made it for us for our birthday.”

Sheryl smiles affectionately at the young girl, brushing back her hair. “Why don’t you two go into the kitchen and get out the bread and stuff so I can make you sandwiches?” 

“Can it be fluffernutters?” the other girl asks and Sheryl nods. 

“Sure,” she says, and the kids whoop, running into the depths of the large house.

When they walk back to the car, Sheryl grabs for Steve’s arm, gripping firm but gentle. “Can we have a moment?” she asks Dustin and Robin. Robin raises an eyebrow and Steve nods. 

“Yeah go ahead,” he says, shielding the sunshine from his eyes. “I’ll be there in a minute.” 

Sheryl doesn’t speak for a long time, staring up at the sky above the house. The breeze catches onto the wisps of her hair, blowing it over her face and she doesn’t move. When she speaks, her voice is barely above a whisper. 

“I left him behind,” she says. “Packed a small bag in the middle of the night and left. Barely had sixty dollars on me.” She turns and gives Steve a wry smile. “Neil always controlled the finances, so I had to squirrel away what little I made in tips until it was enough to get a bus ticket out of there. My plan was to go back and get Billy but by the time I could... it was too late.” She swallows hard. “Neil knew people, was friends with cops and stuff, and they never listened. I could never tell Billy where I was because I knew Neil would come after me. I could hardly afford the ticket out of there much less bring a child along. But I was supposed to come back and get him, and I didn’t. I didn’t make it in time.” 

Breathing becomes difficult. Steve gulps large gusts of air but his chest is still tight, his heart banging against his chest like a gong. Sheryl reaches for him, two strong hands wrapping around his arms, and when he flicks his gaze up, he sees nothing but warm blue eyes and it spreads warmth inside of him like he’s found a home. The voices he hears are muffled, and Steve’s spinning but someone snakes an arm around his waist, pulling him close to another body. He’s shocked to find Dustin near him.

“Alright there?” Dustin asks softly, and Steve nods. “Kinda lost you for a minute.”

“Yeah, fine,” Steve manages with a shake of his head. “Sorry,” he adds to Sheryl.

Sheryl chuckles sadly. “Don’t apologize, darling.” She lifts a hand and brushes back the stubborn part of Steve’s hair that’s always making its way into Steve’s vision. The tilt of Sheryl’s lips resembles the smile that Billy seemed to only use for Steve and he has to turn away. It’s too much. 

“We should get going,” Dustin offers, pulling on Steve’s arm, guiding him to the car. “Thank you for your help.” 

They’re halfway to the van when Sheryl calls for Steve. He does a half turn, and when she speaks again, her voice is more controlled, more certain. 

“I’m glad he had someone,” she says in a deep, meaningful way that makes Steve rattled and off-balance. 

“Me too,” Steve says, his voice more hoarse than he’d like. Dustin tugs on his arm again, saying their goodbyes and guiding Steve back to the van. 

They don’t talk on the way to the hotel, the only sounds are the music playing off the radio, and the whirl of tires on the gravel road.  
  


* * *

  


Nancy corners Steve while he’s on his way to homeroom, pulling him into the walled off area that leads to the bathrooms. Her lips are turned down, and she’s clinging her books to her chest, and Steve knows that something is wrong.

“What happened?” he asks, his voice firm. His stomach fills with the uncomfortable flutter of adrenaline, an edging nausea creeping its way up to the back of his throat. He swallows to gain his composure, glances over his shoulder and leans in. “Is it Will? The kids? Did something—”

“No, no,” Nancy says, squeezing her eyes shut as if she’s preparing to say something even more difficult than there are monsters coming for them again. 

“Okay,” Steve responds elliptically. “Can you clue me in here, because homeroom starts in about—” He looks down at his watch. “Five minutes.”  
Nancy’s eyes flash in anger. “When you said complicated, Steve, I didn’t think it meant you had Billy Hargrove staying the night at your house.” 

Steve chokes on his breath. He peers over both of his shoulders, the rush of heat spreading from his face all the way down his back and to his toes. It’s uncomfortable, and he’s only wearing a t-shirt, the temperature outside warm enough for pre-summer attire. 

Nancy raises an expectant eyebrow. 

“I—You—How?” Steve sputters, shaking his head in disbelief. Billy always leaves early in the morning, just as the sun is rising— _Before my old man finds out_ —he always says, his mouth tilting ruefully. His hair always lays mussed from sleep and whatever they’ve done the night before, eyes warm and tired. Relaxed. 

Nancy shrugs. “Saturday.” That’s all she says. And it’s all she needs to say because Saturday was the first time Steve had woken up to Billy’s mouth trailing down his chest before settling between his legs. Steve was sure time had stopped when Billy took him in his mouth, smiling at Steve’s string of curses, before he deepthroated him. 

Steve stands with his mouth hanging open, words evading him. He tries to say something, anything, and then Nancy’s expression goes from irritated to concerned to sad. She shuffles to the side and looks past him, as though she’s on the lookout for any eavesdroppers, before she speaks. 

“If he spent the night... that means... Are you two—”

“Nancy,” Steve pleads, his hands balling into fists by his side. Sweat trickles over his temple and down his neck. “It’s not what you think, it’s just—”

“Unless you’re about to tell me you both pulled a random all-nighter for a science project, I don’t want to hear it,” Nancy says firmly. “Because anything outside of that is bullshit.”

Steve slumps against the wall, closing his eyes. “You’re not going to—Please, don’t tell anyone, because if you do it could—people could—” He can’t finish that sentence because the mere whiff of an idea of whatever he has with Billy will be around all of Hawkins by fucking dinner. Steve knows what Neil Hargrove does to Billy for showing up late to dinner with Max, much less what he’d do if he found out about this. 

“You can’t,” Steve says resolutely, eyes on Nancy. “If you say anything—”

“Steve,” Nancy says, her voice cracking on the end. He swears he sees her eyes glistening a little. “Do you honestly think I would do that?” 

Truthfully, Steve wouldn’t put it past anyone in this fucking town. Even if he was in love with Nancy with everything he possessed, he never told her about Evan. He had told no one about those nights at the quarry, the way the windows would steam up and how afterwards, when Evan dropped Steve off at his house, kissing him soft and lazy before saying goodnight would leave him floating to the front door. How he slept the best after nights like that. 

“I don’t know. Would you?”

Nancy inhales a shaky breath and Steve knows he made a mistake. She bites her lip and shakes her head, the hair falling over her face. “No,” she whispers, and Steve’s heart plummets when the tear trails down her face. “I just want... I want you to be okay.”

Steve gathers her in his arms, pulling her close. Her shoulders shake a little, and there’s a hiccup and a sigh, and Steve brushes his lips against the top of her head, kissing her as gentle as the whispered platitudes he gives to soothe her. He knows that Nancy’s tears are more than just Billy Hargrove, knows that like him, like the kids, like Jonathan, El, Hopper, Ms Byers—they’re all waiting for the darkness to reveal something else. Something more. Something demonic. And every day that it doesn’t show is another day when they expect it more. 

“I’m sorry,” Steve whispers, leaning back to get a glimpse of Nancy’s eyes. They’re a little red rimmed now, but she sniffles wetly, and gives a wan smile before releasing herself from his arms. Steve rakes a hand through his hair. “Well, this has been an interesting conversation, and right before homeroom.”

“Fuck homeroom,” Nancy says, earning a surprised laugh from Steve. “Wanna skip the next couple of periods and go to the diner and you can tell more about why you’ve been avoiding us?”

Steve smiles, genuine and real, and nods. He really loves Nancy, even if he’s not in love with her anymore. He likes this version of her too, the surprising rebel, and he can’t help but allow the swell of affection to spread through his chest. “Yeah,” he says. “That sounds great.”

***

They end up skipping the rest of the day and head back to Steve’s place. His parents are due back that weekend, he realizes when he looks upon the family calendar and sees the reminder in big bright block letters. Steve’s sleepy and full from breakfast, having eaten his weight in greasy spoon diner food that comprised a large pile of hash browns, eggs, and a stack of pancakes.

“I may fall asleep,” Steve announces when they sprawl out onto the couch, flicking through the channels to find something to watch. He gives up after a few tries and hands the remote to Nancy, grabbing another throw pillow and closing his eyes. “Definitely going to fall asleep.”

Nancy settles on MTV, lowering the volume and covering the blanket over the two of them. They say nothing for a long time, and Steve wonders if maybe she’s also fallen asleep, until she speaks again, her voice so soft he strains to hear what she says. 

“It’s okay, you know,” Nancy murmurs. Steve opens his eyes to find her cuddling with a pillow, her hair smashed against another on the arm of the couch. “I don’t…” She yawns loudly and sighs. “We don’t mind.” 

Steve swallows hard, and nods, as though Nancy can see his response. He opens his mouth a few times, searching for a proper answer to explain the swell of emotion he’s having right now. He knows when she says we she is including Jonathan too, and somehow that means more to Steve than anything else. They’re okay with this. That they... they have each other. 

“Okay,” Steve whispers back. He pauses for a few beats. “Thanks.”

 _When Doves Cry_ plays in the background, and Steve closes his eyes again, listening to the low rhythm of Prince singing, the warmth of Nancy’s socked feet against his calf, and the softness of the pillow under his head. 

He jolts awake to a knock on the front door. Daytime is just starting to hang in the sky longer, but Steve can tell by the slant of sunlight that it’s early evening. They must have been sleeping for a long time. He stretches and passes by Nancy who is still asleep, her hands pillowing her cheek, shoulders rising and falling. 

The knock on the door turns more aggressive, urgent. Steve rolls his eyes, hoping that it’s not some Jehovah's Witness or vacuum salesman trying to hand out pamphlets or convince him to purchase some new edition of something he doesn’t even use in this house. His parents set it up that once a week some cleaning crew comes and straightens up all the shit that Steve is terrible at keeping up with, as if that’s helpful parenting. 

He steels himself ready to make an excuse or get snappy but when he opens the door, it's not a religious organization or a salesman. 

It’s Billy.

His eyes are bloodshot, purple circles under them, and his hair is a bit of a mess. There’s a cut on his lip and that looks new, and Steve wants to reach out and grab him, pull him close and ask what the fuck happened. 

But before he can do that, Nancy is calling Steve’s name behind him. “Is everything—” she says, her voice sleepy and hoarse, and when Steve spins around, she’s got the afghan from the couch wrapped around her small frame, her hair a mess. Her mouth hangs open in shock when she sees Billy and settles on a quiet, “Oh.” 

When Steve turns back to Billy, he catches his eyes flitting back and forth between Steve and Nancy, watches how his jaw clenches, the way his mouth turns down into an angry frown. _Fuck_. 

“Billy, it’s not—”

And Billy is gone. Walking down the long sidewalk that leads to Steve’s house, down the driveway to his car. Steve rushes after him, the pads of his feet running over a rocky landscape to shortcut to Billy, ignoring the stinging sensation on sensitive skin. He says Billy’s name several times, and when his hand grabs for his wrist, Billy jerks out of his grasp so hard that it sends Steve stumbling back a little. 

“What the fuck?” Steve snaps, blocking Billy’s path to his car. “What’s your damage?”

Billy’s laugh is humorless. “My damage, Harrington?” Steve winces at the use of his last name. “My damage is _you_.” 

“You’re making a lot of assumptions here,” Steve says in a low tone. His eyes flick back to the house to see that the door is closed. Good. “It’s not what you think.”

Billy rolls his eyes. “Spare me the bullshit, okay? I don’t have time for this.” He reaches for his car door, and Steve covers it with his hands. Billy narrows his eyes, his stare hard. “Move.” 

“Not until you listen,” Steve says in an even tone. 

Then their bodies are flushed against each other, Billy’s breath hot against Steve’s mouth. It shouldn’t be thrilling, how they’re both breathing hard, how Billy’s eyes are icy with anger. But it is. When Steve stares longer, he notices something else, sees it in between the sneer and bared teeth and he rears back. 

Billy’s... jealous. Steve blinks several times and almost laughs hysterically at the realization. He coughs to cover up the sudden yelp that threatens to breech and sucks in a deep breath. 

“She knows,” he whispers, keeping his eyes on Billy, tilting his head to the house. Billy’s eyes widen and flick to the house again. “She saw your car here on Saturday.” 

“Fuck,” Billy hisses. “I’m going to—”

“You will not do a goddamn thing,” Steve commands, his voice low. “You will chill the hell out because she doesn’t care about any of that.” 

Steve’s hands are clenching onto Billy’s car door and he’s waiting for Billy to say something, anything, because right now there’s nothing but the evening breeze and a silence between them that’s overwhelming, and it’s taking everything Steve has not to grab onto Billy’s collar and pull him closer. He can already sense the heat of Billy’s skin and he wants so badly to lick along the pulse of his neck, to bite into the sensitive flesh just the way he likes, just to hear him groan.

“Nancy knows,” Steve says. “She won’t say anything. She was worried because... because she thought I was avoiding her.”

“I see,” Billy says, his eyes flicking to Steve’s mouth. “Were you?”

Steve hitches his shoulder, shooting for nonchalance. He’s pretty sure he’s missed the mark. “There _has_ been someone who’s been pretty fucking distracting showing up at my house.”

It’s then that Billy draws closer, his arm resting next to Steve’s face, right on top of the roof. Steve can smell the stale scent of cigarettes on his clothes and in his breath, and he bites down on his lip to stop the groan sitting in the back of his throat when Billy rolls his hips against Steve’s.

“Oh you like that, huh?” Billy murmurs, lips brushing against Steve’s ear. 

“Shut up,” Steve says, his voice shaky. Billy’s lips graze across his neck and he tilts his head to give him access. “Want to—ah, fuck—Come inside?” he manages when Billy grazes his teeth over Steve’s chin, lips landing just at the corner of Steve’s mouth. 

“Nah,” he says, pulling back. His pupils are blown wide, eyes at half mast. Steve sees that the split in his lip has opened a little, and blood beads to the surface. He reaches up and brushes the pad of his thumb over the wound and Billy winces in pain. 

“Want to tell me what happened?” Steve asks, raising an eyebrow. Bill grimaces and pulls away, reaching into his back pocket and placing a cigarette into his mouth. 

“Maybe later,” he answers, muffled by the cigarette. It takes several tries with the lighter to get it to work, and when he lights up the end, he leans his head back and sucks in a deep inhale, blowing out the smoke towards the sky. He nods to the house. “When’s she leaving?” 

“I don’t know,” Steve says. “Knowing that you’re here, probably soon.” 

Billy nods, avoiding eye contact and staring down at his boots. “Good,” he says, kicking at a random rock on the driveway. “I’ll be back at eight, then.”

Steve pulls away from the car, walking up the driveway backwards. “Where are you going?”

Billy smiles wide, but dark and almost cruel. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” He opens the car door with fluid ease and says, “Eight o’clock. Don’t forget.” 

Steve watches the way Billy squeals out of his driveway, the loud burst of an engine roaring down the road.


	8. Chapter 8

“What we need,” Dustin says with emphasis, pacing the hotel room with his hands clasped behind his back, “is a library.”

“I can’t disagree,” Robin says, flopping down onto her bed, bouncing a little. Steve continues to stare at the ceiling. There’s a large brown patch of water damage sitting in the middle, tiny bubbles of paint on the surface. 

“Did you see one when we drove in?” Dustin asks the room at large. When no one answers, Dustin claps his hands. “Guys, we need to focus here!” 

“Why would he leave a poem?” Steve wonders out loud, still focusing on the water stain on the ceiling. His hands are pillowing his head underneath him, and he’s going over the words in Billy’s handwriting as though he can see them etched on the ceiling above. There’s a code in there somewhere, leading them to somewhere else, and Steve just wants to know what the hell it is. 

“It’s not a poem,” Robin says with assurance. She’s lying on her side, her eyebrows raised. “What? Did you not hear when his mom said it was Johnny Cash?” Then she rolls her eyes. “It’s a song lyric. Was he a big Cash fan?” 

“I... I don’t know,” Steve answers. “He never mentioned it.” 

“Well, there’s gotta be some meaning behind that. The Man in Black did nothing without A Reason.” 

“Cool, now that we have that all settled, we should check out Carhenge,” Dustin states. 

“Car-what?” Robin says, blinking in confusion. 

“Carhenge!” Dustin proclaims. “I’ve explained this about three times now. Do either of you listen when I’m talking to you?”

“Not really,” Steve says, at the same time Robin says, “Nope.” 

Dustin groans in frustration. “Listen, I’m all for finding Steve’s one lost love, but if I’m going to spend a solid portion of my summer unable to drive, listening to your shitty mixtapes, and sleeping next to that snoring—”

“I do not snore,” Steve retorts, and Robin snorts. 

“Yes you do. Lucky for me I brought earplugs.” She levels her stare to Dustin. “Now, we can go to your little roadside attraction. When do you want to leave?”

Dustin looks down at his watch. “Well it’s virtually sunset, and it’s said to be the best time to view it because of the way it appears in the setting light.” 

The attraction, much to Steve’s surprise, is pretty cool. The setup does resemble Stonehenge (Dustin provided pictures for Steve) and when Dustin continues to ramble about the history behind it for about the third time, he smiles. 

He smiles because Dustin’s effusive enthusiasm feels nice against the warm evening breeze, blowing up sand on their ankles, and the sky shifting from bright blue to a swirl of pink and purple and orange.

Robin joins Dustin in the middle of the structure, staring up at a tower of cars on top of each other, a hand shielding her eyes when the light slants against her face. Steve knew nothing at all about fucking Stonehenge and felt stupid when Robin and Dustin regarded him like he was from another planet for not knowing about some ancient British fucking monument or whatever. Steve just rolled his eyes and kept driving. 

“This is rad as fuck,” Robin notes, spinning around in the middle in awe. She walks up close to one statue, her hand hovering over the structure as though there’s some kind of energy inside of it and she can pull from its well. She closes her eyes, a tiny smile forming on the side of her mouth. 

There, in the middle of nowhere Nebraska, in the middle of some random roadside attraction, in the middle of the precipice between light and dark, Steve lays down on the ground facing the sky. Stars are stippling the pink sky, the moon stretching into view. A rustle of movement on either side of him tells him that Robin and Dustin are joining him. They lay like this, the brushing of knuckles against knuckles, shoe-clad feet kicking into each other. Steve hates silence, always worries that something bigger is around the corner, waiting to swallow him whole, but in this moment, he’s okay. 

He reaches for Dustin and Robin’s hands, gives them a gentle squeeze and whispers, “Not bad. Not bad at all.”

“Yeah,” Dustin says into the growing darkness. “Not bad.”

***

The answer to Steve’s questions happen in a musty old library in a city that Steve has never heard of. He’s almost certain they’re still in Nebraska, nothing but rolling plains and even more rolling boredom. There’s a restlessness in it all too, how the lands are unmoving, nothing for miles except flat earth and a steady horizon. Fields of corn still reign on each side of the highway, and Steve falls asleep to the bloom of another dawn.

He doesn’t go inside the large building, opting to walk around the small desolate downtown instead. Robin and Dustin are all too eager to utilize their nerdiness together and Steve, as much as he is okay with indulging his friends, needs the space. Literally. The van is closing in on the three of them already, leaving them snappy and tired. Steve suspects it’s because no one knows what the fuck their path will lead them to, and if it will be a deadend after all. 

The summer heat is in full bloom, a thick humid wave hovers above the pavement of the road. Steve continues to walk down the sidewalk aimlessly, soaking in the sun and looking into the deserted shops. It looks like Hawkins did a year ago, slowly turning inside out and emptying the pockets of each of the storefronts of everything that they had hidden inside. 

A flashing light grabs Steve’s attention and he sees the neon sign advertise Psychic Readings by Mara. A variety of tie-dyed blankets and crystals decorate the window. It’s the only display that looks like someone is inside, that someone took the time to give a shit about it, despite everywhere else. This town is tired and worn just like its citizens, it seems, and Steve empathizes. 

The bell jingles as he steps inside and is hit with a strong wave of incense. He coughs into his arm, breathing deliberately until the scent stops burning his nostrils. There’s a shuffle from the other side of the shop, and a woman with a soft voice calls, “Be right there!” 

Steve half expects an old wizened woman who can hardly stand up straight to shuffle into the tiny lobby area of the shop, but what he’s greeted with is a young woman with long curly blonde hair, her plum-colored peasant skirt rippling around her legs. Steve casts his eyes over her beige halter top which leaves very little to hide in terms of the imagination and he rapidly shifts his glance away. 

The woman, Mara presumably, tilts her head to the side, a long lock falling over her shoulder. “Can I help you?” 

Steve breathes out a surprised laugh, rubbing the back of his neck. “I don’t know, can you?”

Her blue eyes regard him for a long moment. “You’re looking for answers. Come on back.” 

The room that the woman leads him to is more like a closet than a room. There’s a square table in the middle, covered in a dark blue cloth, a small mat on top of it. Steve eyes the crystal ball, a small smattering of crystals in one corner of the table, and on the other side a deck of cards. He tries not to snort at the two lava lamps sitting behind her. This shit looks like something out of a fucking hippie movie. 

“So how do you want to seek your answers?” 

Steve shrugs. “You tell me. You’re the expert here.” 

The woman chuckles and reaches for the deck of cards, shuffling them with ease. “I’m Mara.” 

“Steve.”

“Nice to meet you, Steve. What brings you here?”

“Shouldn’t you know that already?”

Mara tilts her head again and regards Steve for a long time. The way she stares at him rivals El. He runs a tongue over his bottom lip. 

“Despite what people think, being a medium doesn’t mean I can see everything. What I’m given access to is up to things beyond the veil itself.” She shrugs and sets up the cards in front of Steve in a formation he does not understand. “But if you don’t want to tell me, that’s okay.”

Steve sighs. “On a mission to find the impossible.”

Mara hums, her eyes fixated on the cards below. She slides the deck towards Steve and nods at the table. “Shuffle, split it in half and then put the top on the bottom. When you’re done, you can give it back to me.”

Steve does as he’s told, feeling pretty fucking stupid that he’s even venturing into this. Mara takes the deck back from him, lays out a five card spread. She points to the first one, a moon hanging against a black background, her fingernail tapping into the clothed tabletop. 

“You’ve had to learn how to not be consumed by fear,” Mara says in a hushed tone, her voice liquid and thick like honey. “Fear to you is the enemy, and therefore you’ve had to learn... maybe even force yourself to let that go. Inner confusion, inner emotion. Did someone help you with that? Someone long ago?”

 _Evan_ , Steve thinks. He thinks of the way Evan talked about getting out of Hawkins, about not letting anyone control you. He thinks about the way his hands felt on his neck when they kissed, rough and calloused. 

“Yeah, I guess so.”

Mara hums, sliding her finger to the second card. There’s a three of swords stabbing through a heart. It looks ominous. 

“This represents your past... heartbreak. Someone you loved very much hurt you.” She squints, tilts her head and smiles sadly. “What’s her name?”

Steve’s stomach swoops, his mouth going dry. “Um.”

Mara’s eyes are gentle. “You don’t have to tell me. I’m just curious. She’s smart. Loving. Kind. You really loved her.”

“Nancy,” he whispers, throat constricting. “Her name... her name is Nancy.” 

“A lot of grief. Brought up past pain.” Mara inhales quietly. “I’m sorry.” 

The next card Steve studies for a long time. Naked bodies surround in a circle while an angel holding a horn above looks upon the people and their open arms. They look like they are begging for mercy, for absolution. It’s unsettling. 

Mara smiles. “This is good.”

Steve blinks. “Sorry?”

“It’s a rebirth. You’re changing. Evolving. It’s good. It explains this one.” She points to the one next to it, of two men holding a cup, a lion-faced head with wings hovering above them. “That love you’re worried about is there. You will find it again.” She pauses, chewing on the inside of her lip, contemplating. “This journey is hard for you. This person... your fondness is beyond anything you’ve ever felt. It’s... consuming.”

Steve’s hands grip onto his knees, and he can feel his breathing shallow. Mara doesn’t seem to notice. 

“You’re searching, you’re searching and you don’t—no, you _feel_ that it’s right, but you’re worried you’ll be wrong. Don’t do that. Just accept the journey for what it is.”

“And what is that?” 

Mara points to the last card. It appears as though a bunch of branches are erecting from the ground, a man holding onto one. “For you to persevere. It’s not only about finding the end, but the journey itself. This will take a long time, but it’s worth it.” She brushes her finger over the corner of the last card. “These people you’re with love you too. They understand your pain. Don’t shun them. Let them in.” 

Steve’s throat aches. He scrapes his teeth along his lip and bites down hard. Mara blinks several times, glancing over Steve’s shoulder into the distance before a grin curls at the corner of her mouth. 

“Don’t give up on him,” she whispers. She tilts her head again, her eyes slanting back to Steve. “It’s okay.” An outstretched palm reaches for Steve. He instinctively places his hand in hers. Her skin is pleasant and soft, and it’s—it’s comforting. Steve heaves in a deep sigh. 

“You’ll find what you are in search of.”

Steve blinks several times, to ebb away the sting. “How do you know?” 

Mara smiles and squeezes Steve’s hand. “He told me.” 

When Steve leaves the shop, the sun is painful in his eyes, and he has to squint and blink several times to adjust to the brightness. Mara didn’t charge him for his reading. He insisted on giving her a twenty for her help, but she shoved it back into his hand. 

“You will need this more than me,” she said before reaching up and squeezing his shoulder. “Go, your friends are looking for you.”

When he reaches the library, Dustin and Robin are sitting on the steps, looking over their notes. He doesn’t even know how they got paper. 

“How long have you guys been waiting?”

Dustin doesn’t look up from the paper. “Long enough to consider sending out a search party.”

Robin laughs. “Maybe ten minutes. We figured you were exploring still. Did you find anything fun?” 

Steve sucks in a deep breath, and smiles. “Yeah, yeah, I did.”

“Good,” Robin says, a brilliantly happy smile on her face. “Because we know where we are going next.” 

“Oh?” Steve asks.

“Yeah,” Dustin says, bouncing with excitement. “Truth or Consequences, New Mexico.”

***

The curiosity burns. Steve has to know.

“How did you figure out about the next stop?”

They’re driving on a long stretch of dark highway, the only light in front of them from the van’s headlights. 

Robin doesn’t speak for a long time. “Believe it or not from a random Rolling Stone interview that was on a microfiche. Dustin found it.”

“Of course he did.”

“There’s very little he wouldn’t do for you, you know.”

A long pause. “Yeah. Yeah I know.”

That’s what’s most terrifying about all of this.  
  


* * *

  


Steve realizes he’s in love with Billy Hargrove when he wakes up after a nap one weekend afternoon and Billy is bitching about the lack of food in his house.

It hits him in the most obscene way, too. He’s just finished brushing his teeth and taking a leak, walking into the kitchen scratching his stomach under his t-shirt. He’s not even wearing underwear, for Christ’s sake, and it’s then that he sees Billy sticking his head into the fridge, Steve’s sweat pants riding low on his hips, bitching about how he cannot believe Steve doesn’t have any bread. 

And it hits him, sudden and fast, like fifty mile per hour winds, like a typhoon. Billy Hargrove is a natural fucking disaster, and Steve is in love with him. 

Billy looks over his shoulder, eyebrows wrinkling together before he catches that Steve is half naked. His lips curl into heated seduction. “Well,” he says, flinging the fridge shut, causing what little condiments live there to rattle. “I guess I must improvise.”

“What do you mean ‘improvise’?”

The answer goes ignored because Billy is wrapping an arm around Steve’s waist, tugging him close, and dragging sharp canines over the spot on Steve’s neck that always makes his knees weak. No one else has ever found that spot, just Billy, and Steve’s head spins like he’s on a merry-go-round. He’s spinning and spinning and spinning and Billy is the hurricane, the tornado that will blow him away. 

Billy backs Steve up to the counter and drops to his knees. Steve grips the edge of the counter, just to ground himself, to not lose it over the sight of Billy on his knees in front of Steve, tracing his fingertips over Steve’s thigh and over his hip. He’s touching him everywhere but where Steve’s body begs for contact the most, and before Steve can protest, before he’s at the point of fucking begging, Billy takes him into his mouth and swallows him down. 

This is also something that Steve loves, that only Billy knows. He loves the sloppy way that Billy gives head, too much and not enough of his mouth, and he loves the way Billy’s hands glide all over, exploring every inch of Steve’s body, never shy about where he goes, always eager for more. 

Steve squeezes his eyes shut to keep control, because when his mind thinks about this, when his heart clatters inside of his chest hard and insistent, he doesn’t know what will come out of his mouth. He’s always been a talker during sex, specifically when Billy’s got his thumb tracing over his asshole, dry and curious, and that’s when Steve spreads his legs further. 

That’s when Steve moans, and begs, “Do it, come on, I want it, I want to feel you inside of me.” 

Billy pulls off his cock, his lips wet and red. They’re both breathing hard, heaving big gulps of breath and Billy’s eyelids are lidded and glassy and Steve really wants to kiss him. 

He’s a stereotype. A Brat Pack romance movie. He’s so goddamn gone. 

Billy swings back onto his heels, pops up off the floor in one fluid motion, his face close to Steve’s. The heat of his breath is intoxicating, and Steve pushes his palms into the edge of the countertop to keep him from moaning in desperation. 

“Say what you want,” Billy says. His voice is hoarse and raw, husky and dark, and it goes straight to Steve’s dick. 

Steve reaches for Billy’s hip, pulls him close, feels the hard ridge of his erection against his own. He buries his face into Billy’s neck because he can’t look at him when he’s about to confess something this big, something he’s thought about when he was alone at night with nothing but thoughts of Billy to occupy his brain. When he jerked himself raw, fantasizing about Billy underneath him, about riding him until he came all over Billy’s stomach and chest. 

“C’mon,” Billy insists, his fingers carding in Steve’s hair and tugging at the root. Steve shudders a sigh and he can feel Billy chuckle. “Say it. I want to hear you say it.” 

Steve moves back, with the hammer of his heartbeat like the roar of the ocean in his ears. He licks his lips and whispers, “Fuck me.” 

Billy’s smile is wide and wicked. “There we go.” His voice is low and sinister, and it makes Steve’s toes curl. When he kisses him, it’s filthy and languid and all-consuming. Just like Billy. 

Then he’s guiding him into the bedroom, a hand around Steve’s wrist, and Steve’s brain is turning into mush. He’s never done this before with anyone, and holy fuck, he will do it with Billy Hargrove right now. 

“What about breakfast?” Steve asks when Billy removes his shirt, leaving him naked in front of him. Billy drops the pajama pants to the floor, leaving himself naked too. He doesn’t wear underwear when he comes over now, and that’s something that Steve thinks is just for him too. Just for them. 

“Breakfast can wait,” Billy says, guiding Steve to the bed. “I have things I want to do with you.”

Somehow Billy has lube. Steve considers if that’s something he’s always carried, waiting for when they would do this. Steve wants to know if Billy wants him to fuck him, if he’s done that before, but he stops thinking about it when the pleasure of Billy’s fingers becomes so overwhelming that it turns from tolerable to a very uncomfortable burn.

“Bear down,” Billy instructs. “It helps.” 

Steve’s cheek brushes against his pillow, a fire blooming into his chest. It’s ragged and raw, and it scorches in the space between Steve’s ribs, but he listens to Billy and he bears down. Billy does something with his fingers, curls inside of him and Steve lights the fuck up, his eyes wide and his mouth slack as he moans. 

“Oh fuck, oh fuck,” Steve rambles, hands clenching into the sheets. 

Billy chuckles softly, his hand fisting Steve’s dick at the same time he does that magic with his fingers again. Steve will definitely come any moment now, and that defeats the purpose of his request. He grabs at Billy’s wrist, feels the pulse tittering against Steve’s fingertips. 

“Do it,” he whispers, the warm flush rising in his neck and cheeks, sweat beading on his forehead. Billy nods, sits back on his heels, wiping his hand on Steve’s sheet as he reaches for the condom. Steve wrinkles his nose. 

“Thanks, man. I just changed those.”

Billy arches an eyebrow. “I’m sorry, do you have a date with someone else’s dick in your ass coming up that I don’t know about?” 

Steve sputters. “ _What_?”

Billy laughs. “Chill, I’m trying to distract you. You look like a deer in headlights.” 

Then he’s rolling the condom on, his lower lip caught between his teeth and Steve can’t even bring himself to say a proper retort. Billy shifts and hovers over Steve, grazing his mouth and teeth along Steve’s chin, and asks, “How do you want it?”

Steve swallows hard. Shit. He’s already told Billy once before that he’s never done this, and now they will really make due on that promise and he’s at a loss for an answer. “I don’t know.” 

Billy’s lips curl as he reaches for Steve’s leg, hooking his arm under his knee. “I see.” 

“Have—Have you?”

Billy shrugs casually, his smile savage. “Once or twice.” 

Steve huffs a bemused laugh. “Well if that’s the case, what are you waiting for?”

It fucking hurts, there’s no doubt about it. It feels nothing like fucking a chick, and Steve regrets the whole goddamn thing, almost bails out and asks to go back to what they were doing before. But Billy takes it slow, his breath catching and sharp, his lips parted. He pushes back, grabbing for Steve’s other leg, spreading him wide, which is uncomfortable, but not... bad. Steve’s dick isn’t hard anymore, and he’s gripping onto the pillow beneath him, and it fucking hurts, but the look of bliss on Billy’s face, the way he’s holding onto Steve’s legs like he’s the only one holding him up, is beautiful. He’d do this repeatedly just to see him torn open like this. 

“Ready?” Billy whispers. Before Steve can answer he moves and then… then it goes from being painful to awesome. Incredible. Incendiary. Steve is hot all over, his back sweating, and Billy’s fucking him, swirling his hips around, and then his dick hits that spot again and Steve is arching off the bed, damn near yelling a moan. 

“Like that, pretty boy?” Billy murmurs, thick and honeyed.

“Fuck, fuck, don’t stop. God,” Steve babbles. His dick is hard again, and he reaches for it, desperate to give it the attention it needs. Billy bats his hand away, and Steve’s leg falls off the bed. 

“Not yet,” Billy says, grabbing for Steve’s leg again. “We’ve just started. When I’m done with you, you’ll be thinking about this for days. You’ll see me in the halls, and you’ll want it all over again. I’m gonna make this so good for you. So good.” 

“Oh my god,” Steve moans, flinging an arm over his eyes. He needs more, needs to feel it deep inside his bones, wants to commit all of this to memory. Because he just stood in the kitchen half naked and realized he was fucking in love with someone who slammed their fists into his face until he couldn’t tell what was real and what was a dream.

So he says the only thing he can think of in the middle of his lust-soaked brain: “Harder.”

There’s a pause and then a low growl. “What was that?”

Steve peers from under his arm. “Har—harder.”

Billy doesn’t look like he’s losing himself like Steve is sure he does, but the burn in his eyes, and the small beads of sweat dripping down his chest tells otherwise. Billy’s nods, drags his tongue over his lip with that sinful grin, and everything blurs around Steve’s vision when he says, “Ask nicely.”

Oh fuck. Steve is so gone. 

“Please,” Steve whispers, arching off the bed again. “Please, harder.” 

Then Billy fucks Steve with abandon, and Steve loves it, he loves the way Billy’s grunting and groaning, how their skin slaps together, how Billy has Steve stretched out in front of him. Steve’s hands reach above him and so he can push back down to keep his head from banging into the headboard that’s also slamming into his bedroom wall. The last thing he needs is showing up to the hospital and trying to explain to the doctor that his potential concussion is because of getting split in half by Billy Hargrove. 

Steve’s almost convinced he can come like this, with Billy above him, his dull nails biting into his thighs, the slide of Billy’s hips smacking into his ass. But then Billy tells him he can touch himself and the moment his hand just brushes his dick he’s coming hard with a shout, the dizzying headiness of an orgasm flushing over him wave after wave. And it’s after that he can feel Billy shudder above him, groan a long string of colorful words, announcing his own climax. 

When Steve opens his eyes, Billy’s breathing hard, his hair sticking to his temples, his lips wet. Steve yanks him down, and they kiss messily, tongues sloppy and hands everywhere. Somewhere during it all, Billy pulls out, and the burn that’s left in its wake has Steve moaning with discomfort. Billy breaks the kiss, their foreheads resting together. 

“Your jizz is all over my stomach,” Billy announces, but he doesn’t try to move off Steve.

“Yeah, and your dick was just in my ass, what’s it to you?” 

Billy’s laugh is slow and heavy, like it sounds when he’s shared a joint with Steve. “Come on, pretty boy, let’s shower.”


	9. Chapter 9

Robin’s sitting on the back counter at Scoops, her legs dangling in front of her, hat tilted to the side. Steve is leaning against the counter next to her, his arms crossed over his chest. The sea of people outside are loud and distracting, carrying bags from department stores, laughing boisterously at their findings, pushing their friends along to keep up. Steve's eyes his target near the mall fountain, and smiles. 

“Man in the cowboy hat,” Steve says, nodding into the distance. 

Robin squints her eyes. “Definitely under the witness protection program. He aspires to one day write a memoir about his time with the mob, and he’s stuck in Hawkins because it’s as far away from Miami as he can get.”

Steve snorts. “You’ve watched The Godfather too many times.” 

Robin kicks him ineffectually. “Do not diss the classics.” 

“Your turn.”

Robin hums and smiles knowingly. “Lady with the four kids.”

Steve notices the exhausted woman, shuffling children all under the age of ten. Her shirt is riding up the side as she carries what appears to be a heavy bag, and heaves a sigh, demanding that they will not get ice cream and have to get home for dinner. Steve breathes a sigh of relief. He just cleaned the damn floor from another mess of rugrats who didn’t know how to use a spoon properly. 

“Mormon. Definitely Mormon.”

Robin tilts her head back, spilling out a loud cackle. “Good one. You definitely get a point for that.”

Steve beams, straightening up further. “Awesome.”

“But I’m still ahead.” 

“Hey, don’t steal my thunder!” Steve protests, poking Robin in the side. 

She laughs again, and Steve stares up at her, watching the way her eyes crinkle in the corners, how her hair falls around her neck. Steve can see himself being into someone like Robin, with her no bullshit attitude, and the way she reads crazy Russian lit books, and how she gets excited about indie movies he’s never heard of. He doesn’t know how she even gets that kind of information, maybe through some underground network or something, but he likes that, and he likes her. 

“You’re happier, you know,” Robin says. She doesn’t look at Steve, her eyes flicking back and forth to the noisy sea outside of their quiet shop. Steve braces the countertop hard. 

Eventually, when he finds the voice in his throat, Steve whispers, “Yeah?” 

She doesn’t speak for a long time; her legs still swinging in a rhythmic motion, still watching the people in the mall. She nods a little, jumps off the counter, standing in front of Steve. 

“Yeah,” Robin says. “I used to think you were such a dick, and now you’ve calmed down.” She pauses as if she’s readying herself for what she’s about to say next. “I think—I think he’s been good for you.” 

Steve blinks several times and shakes his head. Robin’s words still hang in the air between them, and Steve didn’t imagine this. He swallows hard and nods, speechless. 

“You don’t have to worry, you know,” Robin adds quietly. She’s looking down at the floor at her feet as though she’s found something interesting in the crevices of the tile. “I get it.”

Steve’s heart bangs inside of his chest so hard it makes him nauseated. He can’t understand what Robin means when she says this, can’t explain to himself if she’s telling him what he thinks she’s telling him, that somehow they’re both—

“Remember when I gave you shit about how much [name] was into you?” Robins eyes are sad and shining, the smile on her face rueful. “I wanted her to look at me like that, not you.”

“Oh,” Steve whispers. They share the silence for a bit, and Steve’s stomach flips. “I mean, that’s okay.” 

Robin laughs. “I’m glad I have your approval.” 

“I mean, it sounded like you were asking for it,” Steve teases, affecting his typical flirtatious stance. Robin snorts and shakes her head. 

“You look utterly ridiculous when you do that. You know that right?” 

Steve shrugs. “It’s worked on plenty of other people.”

Robin raises an eyebrow. “Like Billy Hargrove?”

Steve nearly falls over onto the floor. He glances around frantically, hoping that someone doesn’t just show up and scream _surprise!_ and snap his picture to land on the Hawkins News Report. He can imagine the headlines now, _King Steve is In Love With November Assailant_. The air feels too thick, and Steve needs to breathe, needs another gulp of air because what if someone heard?

“Hey,” Robin murmurs, placing her hands on Steve’s shoulders. “Don’t freak out, okay? I won’t say anything.” 

“Sorry,” Steve says, his voice hoarse and breathless. He combs a hand through his hair. He’s abandoned the hat today in an act of rebellion, especially after a group of pre-teens came in asking him the name of his boat and about his uniform’s stupid hat. He nearly threw whipped cream at their faces. 

“Don’t be sorry, this happens. The whole... sexuality crisis thing,” Robin says quietly, leaning in as if she’s imparting some valuable information to Steve. Then she pauses and tilts her head. “Wait, are you just into guys or you also into—” She waves a hand back and forth as if to illustrate her meaning. 

Steve swallows several times. “Both.”

“Preference or equally?” 

“Um,” Steve says just to give himself time. He really doesn’t know. He’s been with a lot of girls, far more than guys. He likes how they're soft and smaller than him, likes the way their hips feel against his palms, the naturally smooth skin of their bodies. Then he thinks about how Evan’s hands felt over him, the way they always seemed too rough, too big. 

There’s nothing delicate about Billy at all. That idea is laughable. He likes the way Billy’s nails bite into his skin, the way he can push Steve down into the mattress, the way he bites hard. He enjoys feeling that he has to fight with Billy to get what he wants. Thrills at the heated stare when he wins. 

“I’d say it’s pretty even,” Steve says. 

“That’s rad,” Robin says, reaching for the mop and shoving it into Steve’s hands. “Now go clean up that mess in the corner you’ve been ignoring from when one of your children’s sister came in here again. For another sample. Again.”

“Her name is Erica,” Steve says, making his way towards the corner. “And she’s a royal pain in my ass.”

“No one told you to adopt all those kids, Harrington,” Robin says, with a tsk. Steve smiles and starts mopping the floor.  
  


* * *

  


“To Truth or Consequences!” Dustin announces for about the fifth time since they started their journey that morning.

“I swear to all that is holy, Dustin, if you say that one more time I will cut your tongue out,” Robin says evenly, her eyes studying the map folded in her lap.

“Don’t be such a hater, Robin,” Dustin says. “You should be excited that two-thirds of the Scoop Troop figured out where the hell we are going next.” He pauses for a moment. “Well, one-half, if we count Erica, which we should. She was, in fact, a monumental help with dealing with the Russians and helping us save the world.”

“That she was,” Steve agrees, flicking on the turn signal and looking over his shoulder for oncoming traffic. “I’m just glad I don’t have to be the Dad to two minors this summer.”

Robin huffs a laugh. “Please, you love adopting littles. It’s like you keep a collection in your pocket. How on earth do you keep them alive?” 

“With the mighty sustenance of pop and m&ms,” Steve replies, merging onto the highway. “Ask Dustin, how else do you think he maintains all that energy?”

“I prefer 3 musketeers,” Dustin pipes in, his head hovering between Robin and Steve. “The nougat is obviously the more superior of candy filling.” 

Robin wrinkles her nose. “Majorly disagree, dude. It’s obviously Snickers.”

Dustin gasps in shock. “Robin! You traitor! How dare you speak of such a blasphemy!”

“Look, both of you are wrong,” Steve says. “The obvious choice is Milky Way.” 

There’s a long, awkward, still silence. Steve flicks his glance over to Robin and Dustin staring at him in horror. 

“What?”

Dustin blinks several times and turns to Robin. “You want to take this one?” 

Robin turns back to the map and shakes her head. “Nope. I’m not even going to go there.”

“We can at least agree on that,” Dustin says solemnly.  
“Oh, just shut up,” Steve grumbles, turning up the volume of the radio to fill the car with Tears for Fears’s _Head over Heels._ Robin hums immediately, and Dustin settles into the back, spreading out and singing along. 

There’s nothing but long patches of highway ahead of them, Betty rolling them along.

***

Robin suggests that they stop in Colorado Springs to find a hotel to stay in. By the time they get there, Steve is ready for something to eat that isn’t from a bag, or from a drive thru. Mountains stretch across the distance, changing from the flat plains that they had previously become accustomed to in Nebraska. Gone are the cornfields, giving way to a large open space where the horizon is eclipsed by crags and brush.

“Wow,” Dustin whispers in awe. They spotted the mountains about two hours before reaching the city, but now they’re magnified, so close to them it’s almost like they can reach out and touch them. It looks like a painting, so utterly unnatural and beautiful that it takes Steve’s breath away. 

He wishes Billy could see this. 

They stop for gas first, just to stretch their legs and to refill on snacks. Robin grabs a handful at beef jerky like it’s a compulsion and Steve stares at the glass doors for far too long, blinking between exhaustion. The stillness is finally settling into Steve’s muscles and bones. He’s achy and needs a shower. 

“Find anything you like?” Robin asks, sucking on a Slurpee while juggling two arms filled to her chin with chips, candy, and other random food items that Steve can’t see. 

“Not really,” Steve says with a sigh. “Better get some Jolt, though, or else Dustin will have a fit.” 

Robin walks to the counter, dumping down her findings and says, “We’re not done yet.” 

The attendant behind the counter looks as though she’s been alive for almost a century, and the blase shrug of her shoulders as she continues to read her book is suitable affirmation for Robin. 

“Want a Slurpee?” She asks, nodding over to the machine. Steve shakes his head. “Okay. Hotdog?”

“I'm not hungry.” 

“Well too bad, Steve, because you’ve got to eat and I refuse to take over this whole trip because you are too tired.” Robin walks over to the food area and prepares him something, also grabbing a random soft pretzel. “Gotta feed the child, too,” she states. 

Robin leans against the counter as the cashier scans the items. Slowly. Steve sighs. 

“You will want to put gas on that tab, too,” Robin says, crossing her arms and waiting. They’re near the end when the doors practically rattle by the volume of something outside. The cashier raises her eyebrows in question to Steve and Robin, then nods to the gas pumps.

When they walk outside, bags filled to the brim with their findings, _Safety Dance_ is blaring from Betty. Dustin dances around the car, attempting and failing miserably, to do a moonwalk as he stumbles upon a loose rock under one of his shoes. He ends up recovering quickly, continuing to lift an arm over his head and pointing in the air as he lip syncs the lyrics. 

Steve turns slowly to Robin, who meets his gaze with shock. Soon her shoulders shake, her lips covering her teeth as she attempts to hide her laughter. When she squeezes her eyes shut, Steve laughs, and then she joins him. 

Eventually the song ends, and Dustin calls, “Oh! You guys finished, awesome.” He meets up with them near the entrance of the gas station, his cheeks flushed and his breathing uneven. His grin is wide, delighted, as if he had just made a huge accomplishment. “Hey did you get—”

“Yes, we got all your favorite little snacks including the gummy bears, now let’s get in the car and on the road before you bust out with another one of your signature moves,” Robin notes, with a smile that appears fond. 

Finding a hotel takes longer than they expect, and they end up getting lost in a random neighborhood in the city. Everything looks open and sparse, nothing but clear blue skies and long winding roads. The air is crisp here, and Robin rolls down her window, sticking her hand out to glide along the wind. 

They find a hotel eventually, after driving around until Steve sees nothing but a blur of sunlight and red clay behind his eyelids. When they park, Robin tells him to wait as she goes inside, and asks Dustin to help her get some stuff out of the car. Steve rests his forehead against the steering wheel and closes his eyes. 

Steve does not understand what the actual fuck he’s doing. He’s taken two people away from their homes, (one of which has lied to his own mother about his whereabouts), most likely has other kids lying in their friend’s absence, and all for what? To meet Billy’s mother? To run after some kind of idea of a dream?

“God, I wish I knew what you were doing,” Steve says aloud. “I wish you could just tell me, and then I’d be able to know.”

“Who are you talking to?” Dustin asks, making Steve jump. Dustin lifts his hands up, like he’s surrendering. “Chill, dude. It’s just me.” 

“Sorry,” Steve mutters, unbuckling his safety belt. “Where’s Robin?”

“Getting the keys to our room,” Dustin replies, opening up the van and grabbing various bags of chips and pop. “You need to sleep.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

“Do you still... you know,” Dustin adds quietly. He shuffles on his feet, nervous and unsure, like he’s worried that he’s overstepped his boundaries or something. He takes his hat off and brushes back the tamped down curls.“You know. Nightmares.” 

When he says the last word, it’s almost a whisper. A confession. Steve aims for honest. 

“Yeah, sometimes.”

“I thought so.” Dustin sighs, shoving his hat back on before closing the door and hauling his backpack onto his shoulder. Steve gets out of the van, puts the keys into his pocket. He realizes that Dustin’s got his bag, and he reaches for it and takes it from him. 

“I can hear you sometimes,” Dustin mumbles, his eyes focused on the parking lot pavement. “You know, when you’re asleep.”

Despite the cool breeze, the heat from the blacktop radiates onto them from below, whipping up against Steve’s face. It’s a dryer heat than he’s used to, and he tilts his head to the sky, allowing the bright light behind his eyelids to eclipse his vision. 

“Yeah,” Steve replies, his eyes remaining closed. “I guess you both do.”

“What do you—Like do you see—”

Steve turns to Dustin giving him a sad smile. “I think you know the answer to that.”

Dustin ducks his head and laughs, embarrassed. “Yeah, I guess I do.” 

“What are you two lovebirds squawking about?” Robin yells, her head hanging out the side of the door. She jingles keys in her hand. “I have a room, let’s do this.” 

The room isn’t as small as the last place they stayed. The beds are bigger and there’s even a pull-out sofa for someone. Steve immediately commandeers a bed and announces, “I haven’t slept for nearly 36 hours, and you two can flip a coin on who gets what.” 

He kicks his shoes off, tucks himself under the heavy duvet which is less scratchy than the last one, and sinks into a pillow with a happy sigh. Robin and Dustin decide on a rock, paper, scissors to determine who shall take the couch, and it ends up that Dustin loses. 

“That’s entirely not fair,” he grumbles. 

“Two out of three, baby,” Robin sings. There’s a shuffle of some bags, and then she says, “How about I make it up to you by getting you some food?” 

“Hell yes!” Dustin proclaims. Steve can almost hear him fist pumping. 

There’s a clatter of curtains being shut and it fills the room in complete darkness. A flick of a bedside lamp, and the AC unit kicks on. Robin whispers, _sleep well_ so quietly it sounds like it’s floating away with the wind. Then the door snicks shut and Steve is alone. 

He dreams of blue eyes and soft hair. Of cigarettes, and cologne, and the tang of sweat on his tongue. He dreams of rough hands, and rougher kisses, all tongue and teeth, of possession. When Steve wakes, he’s alone, nothing but the soft glow of the lamp to keep him company. 

Robin and Dustin end up coming back with pizza for Steve. Dustin practically feeds it to him, and Steve rolls his eyes and says, “I was just tired, Dustin. I can feed myself.”

“I don’t know,” Dustin says, his hands on his hips. “Jury’s still out on that one.”

“Dude, they have cable here,” Robin says with excitement. Dustin abandons Steve to sit with her on her bed. They flick through the channels, bickering back and forth until they settle on one of the Star Wars movies that Steve cannot remember the name of. 

“You know,” Dustin says, pinching his nose. “It’s so painful hearing you talk about how little you know about pop culture.”

“Any culture,” Robin says, shaking a handful of Junior Mints into her hand. “Do you even read?”

“I read,” Steve says, his voice rough from sleep. He flips onto his side, tucking his hands under his cheek. “I may not be into Dostoevsky, but I read.”

“Tell me the last book you read,” Dustin says. Leaning forward so he can look at Steve. He raises a pointed eyebrow. 

Steve flips onto his back and stares at the ceiling. The last book he had read was _The Great Gatsby_. It was one of Billy’s favorites. 

“It doesn’t matter,” he says instead. 

“Aha!” Dustin retorts. “I knew you would say that.” 

“Whatever, just go back to watching your movie,” Steve mutters, flinging an arm over his eyes. 

“On it,” Robin says around a mouthful of candy. Steve hears a box shake. “Junior mint?” 

Steve shuffles onto the bed until he’s in a sitting position. “Pass. Gotta eat this pizza Dustin has procured for my nourishment.”

“That’s what friends do,” Dustin agrees. They all sit in companionable silence, the action of the movie ringing into the room. Eventually Dustin sighs, shifting on the bed and says, “I wish we could go to Salt Lake and visit Suzie.”

“Not happening, buddy,” Robin says, without missing a beat. “I’m not going to Mormon city. They hate gay people. You want me and Steve to get burned at the stake?”

Dustin sputters in disbelief before going quiet again. “Okay, first, fair. And second, I want to clarify that my girlfriend isn’t too into the whole Mormonism thing because it makes little sense scientifically, but she has to keep that quiet for obvious reasons.”

Steve has opened the curtains staring out at the mountains ahead. He smiles to himself, that familiar warmth pooling in the pit of his stomach. Maybe he doesn’t know what the hell Billy’s trying to tell him, but he’s glad he doesn’t have to do it alone. Small mercies, and all. 

“We should do something while we’re here,” Steve says a little later, when Dustin has fallen asleep on Robin’s bed. Robin doesn’t seem irritated when she comes out of the bathroom from a shower and finds him nearly starfished on her bed, toweling her wet hair, a smirk forming on the corner of her mouth with a loving shake of her head. 

“Like what?” Robin says quietly, pulling the duvet over Dustin’s sleeping body before settling next to Steve on his bed. She takes a slice of pizza from the box in front of her. 

“There’s this place...Garden of the Gods.” Steve had read about it when Dustin and Robin were out getting food after he had woken up from his nap. They were gone for hours, most likely to give him space and a chance to catch up with sleep. Steve had taken the time to get a shower in, washing away the grime of travel, trying to let the lingering sensation of Billy invading his mind disappear down the drain with the water. 

It was then that he saw the brochures fanned across the bedside table, tourist spots and attractions across laminated trifolds. He stared at the rock formations, how they stood on their own through years of erosion and weather, aimed straight to the heavens. He had wondered if it interested Billy, and it reminded Steve of their nights at the rock quarry, how Billy would go there by himself to just be alone. A private sanctuary with nature. 

“Okay,” Robin says. “Let’s do it.” 

They go in the morning, just when the sun is touching the sky. Thin clouds stretched across the blue, brushstrokes of white against the expanding light of the dawn. In the distance they can see the Garden of the Gods, large rock formations brought together by the earth itself. Steve’s seen nothing like this up close. They look like spires, red-orange structures against greenery. 

Steve shields his eyes with his hand and looks beyond the pillars to see a group of hot air balloons. They float closer, the checkered balloons donned in various bright colors, and Dustin spins on his heels as he watches them carefully swim over them in the air, slowly driving by. 

“Wow,” Dustin says in awe, watching as the hot air balloons continue on their course. 

“Yeah,” Robin replies. She’s wearing heart-shaped sunglasses that she bought at the gas station on the way into town. They’re bright blue, like the color of the sky above them. Steve can see the balloons reflected off the lenses. 

“We should get going,” Steve says, turning on the path and making his way back to the van. “We have a long drive ahead of us.”

They walk in silence on the way back, the rising sun beating on their backs. Robin takes over driving, and Dustin provides her with a bag of chips and a Jolt which she accepts without a word. Steve opens the map, points in the direction to the highway, and they drive.

Onward and upward.


	10. Chapter 10

Billy doesn’t show up to school.

On Monday as Steve parks his car after dropping off the kids, he sees Billy’s car isn’t in his usual spot. Max was still waiting at the middle school’s carloop for the group, antsy and nervous, shifting from side to side, and Steve drives to school faster than he should, hoping he can see Billy before homeroom.

He doesn’t show up on Tuesday either. Steve sits in math class, staring at Billy’s assigned seat, watching the unoccupied space with a twist in his chest. Jonathan and Nancy keep giving him concerned looks at lunch, and Robin snaps at him at work on Wednesday saying he’s acting like a whiny bitch when he refuses to clean up an epic mess a table of toddlers leave behind as she deals with a line of persistent customers. 

When Thursday comes, he goes to the arcade with the kids to hang out and give himself something to do. He ends up standing in the middle of a mess of customers, with its loud rings and special effect clatter, the kids yelling at each other over who’s turn it is after Dustin creams them for the fifth time. He keeps glancing at the door, like Billy will walk in at any moment, a cloud of cigarette smoke circling around him, his eyes scanning the crowd. Once Lucas pushes Dustin out of the way and tells him to stop hogging the game, Dustin leans against the wall next to Steve, and stares at him until Steve sighs and rolls his eyes. 

“What?”

“You’re in a mood.”

Steve rolls his eyes again. “I am not in a mood.”

Dustin scoffs. “Dude, what’s your damage? You don’t come to arcade night for ages, and when you do, you show up acting like someone’s run over your cat or something.” 

Steve scrubs a hand over his face. He’s not in the mood to deal with this. What he wants to do is raid his dad’s liquor cabinet, but he can’t because his parents came home early this week. So now he has to deal with the uncomfortable silences of dinner and continued disappointing sighs about how he ruined his future by not applying to any colleges. 

A year ago, Steve had been so sure of everything. They had defeated the Upside Down (or so they thought), and he had Nancy. He thought he would get into Tech, or worse case work for his dad, and take care of her. It’s what he would tell himself at night before he went to sleep, when he tried to convince himself that’s what he wanted even though deep down the unease would make his chest hurt like he had indigestion. He’d stare at his ceiling, glowing in the deep yellow color of his bedside lamp, listening to the radio, and try to tell himself over and over he wanted it. After he swallowed down the rise of bile in the back of his throat.

But he didn’t want it. He knows that now, because as he’s leaning against the arcade wall, with Dustin’s eyes heavy with concern, he realizes how much he wishes Billy would walk through that door, take one glance at him and nod, a smile curling on the side of his lips. Then Steve could know everything is all right. He wants that, and he wants it so much more than he ever wanted anything with Nancy Wheeler. 

“Well?” Dustin demands, and before Steve can even come up with an answer, the door opens and Max walks inside. Relief floods through Steve, and he makes his way over to her, his feet carrying him there on their own, and he’s in front of her, crowding her space, doing a side step to keep her from moving past him. 

“Get out of my way,” Max says in a low tone that sounds threatening. 

“Where is he?” Steve asks, crossing his arms over his chest. 

Her eyes shudder before shifting into neutral calm. It’s fucking impressive. She mirrors Steve’s position, making her stance wider and crossing her arms. 

“Why should I tell you?” 

Steve narrows his eyes. “Max.” When she raises an eyebrow in challenge, he bites his lip. He’s not above begging, but he won’t do it yet. He looks over his shoulder at Dustin watching them, flicks his gaze to the other side of the arcade. “C’mon.”

Max sighs, defeated, her arms dropping to her side. “I—I can’t talk about it.” 

The way her voice shakes at the end tells Steve that she’s scared. He’s seen her look this way before, right in the face of death, when she was driving Billy’s car in a panic. Steve swallows around the tightness in his throat and tries not to assume the worst. He knows what Billy’s dad can do to him. But he’s never missed school because of it. 

“Look,” Max says, lowering her voice and leaning in closer to Steve. “I’ll let him know you... you asked about him, okay? But that’s the best I can do.” 

Steve nods, accepting the inch she’s giving him. “Thanks.”

“Don’t sweat it,” she says, her voice verging on condescension, and Steve shakes his head in disbelief that someone who’s barely a teen can be such an adult. When the rest of the kids see her making her way towards them, there’s a boisterous greeting as she says, “Move over losers, It’s my turn to kick your asses.” 

Dustin is still staring at him. Steve offers a sad smile, lifts his hand up in a wave before walking up to the concession counter and ordering a round of pop. He hands Dustin his drink last, pulling out a 3 Musketeers from his back pocket and holding it out in offering. It’s an olive branch via bribery, but he knows it’ll work.

“It’s complicated and I promise I’ll tell you just.. not now, okay?” 

Dustin’s eyes flick between the candy bar and Steve’s face and back to the candy bar again. “You rotten bastard,” he mutters, grabbing the candy and taking an unhealthy bite. He points the half eaten bar at Steve. “You better fill me in and soon or so help me God I will sing on the network all night long. Don’t make me do it Steve.” 

“God, please don’t,” Mike complains. “It’s literally the worst.”

“Hey!” Dustin protests. “You love _Come Sail Away_.”

“Yeah, but not by _you_ ,” Lucas says. Will giggles behind his hand. 

Steve’s bouncing his head around between the volley of retorts so fast he’s feeling woozy. “Okay, promise,” he announces. “Now why don’t you focus on Max kicking your asses.”

He doesn’t miss the small smile turning at the corners of her mouth.

***

After dropping the kids off at Mike’s place, Steve drives to the quarry. He needs to get out of Hawkins, needs to stare at the stars and recalibrate before he heads back to the house where his parents take up too much space. Even though it’s filled with more than enough bedrooms and bathrooms, even though it’s one of the few houses that has a pool (that Steve never goes near), coexisting with his father’s belittling stare to his mother’s apologetic one is suffocating.

He can’t wait for them to leave again. 

It’ll happen. They will find somewhere else to be, somewhere they don’t want or need Steve to join. They’ll go, as they always have, maybe have someone they pay to stop by to make sure he’s not doing anything unjust, especially now that his father is aware of the fact he’s blown off his opportunity of going to Tech. Steve didn’t even want to go there in the first place, but it was all he had heard about since the day he could walk. 

It wasn’t even his father’s Alma Mater, he went to fucking Perdue.

He leaves his windows down in the BMW, let’s the lukewarm night air lick through his hair as blasts the radio. Foreigner is playing, and he taps the steering wheel with vigor, amping himself up before the calm. He’s excited, thrumming with it, because the quarry is a place that feels comfortable. The sound of the gravel under his tires, the trill of the crickets mixed with the buzzing of the cicadas all combined with the glow of the moon on the jagged rocks and still water below feels like home. 

Steve drives towards the spot he shares with Billy. That same spot where Billy told him he comes here to think, to get away from it all. Where they kissed again, where confessions crashed down as tall as the trees surrounding them. 

The Camaro is there, and Steve blinks several times to make sure it’s not a trick of the light. But when his headlights shine on the back of Billy’s car, Steve knows that it’s not an illusion. He’s here. 

Billy hasn’t been at school most of the week. The last time that Steve saw him, Billy had fucked him into the mattress, followed by a long shower where they stood under the hot water until it ran lukewarm and then Billy kissed him so lazily and soft that Steve thought his whole soul would rip out from him and onto the tile floor. It didn’t, and it left Steve buzzing under his skin. 

Billy didn’t stay the night that night. He always stays until right before dawn, and before Neil and Susan suspect his absence. At least that’s what he always tells Steve when Steve asks, his jaw set hard and his eyes fierce. Steve has stopped asking. 

Steve turns down the radio and kills the engine. He can’t see Billy’s face, but he can smell his cigarettes, his cologne. It fills the air and stirs a thrill inside of Steve, hangs low in the bottom of his stomach. 

“What are you doing here?” Billy asks, taking another long drag of his cigarette when Steve approaches him. 

“I wasn’t looking for you,” Steve says. It’s a lie. 

Billy sucks in a breath between his teeth. “You know how much I hate lying. Answer the question.”

Steve sighs, defeated. He’s tired, and he doesn’t want to fight. He watches the stars for a long time. 

“I didn’t want to go home.” It’s the truth.

This time Billy laughs but it’s devoid of any humor. “That makes two of us.”

Steve turns to Billy, drawing closer. He can see in the pale moonlight the healings of a busted lip, a scab on his eyebrow. When Billy lifts his hand up to pull again at his cigarette, Steve sees the two fingers taped together. Jesus. 

“What happened?” Steve whispers in horror. It chokes out of him. Rips through his heart and out of his chest. _What the fuck._

Billy shrugs. “Pissed my pops off for existing, and he decided it had been a hard week at work and needed to let off some steam.” 

Steve takes several fortifying breaths that he learned from Nancy that one time he had a panic attack in the middle of a football game at school a year ago. Three in; five out, she had whispered that over and over in a voice that wrapped around Steve like a hug. Her small hands cradled his head in her cold palms, and finally the over-bright lights, the roar of the announcer, faded away to Nancy's grey-blue eyes. 

“I found her,” Billy whispers, his voice trembling. It’s the first time that Steve has ever heard it waver. No matter how many times he’s showed up to Steve’s house battered and bruised, he’s never shed a tear, showed no wavering in his conviction. But Steve can hear it now, and even though it’s just a breath, it’s a rocking thunder in his ears. Steve clenches his fist to stop the tremble of his hands. 

Billy doesn’t seem to notice. 

“She’s living in fucking Nebraska, can you believe that? Apparently got remarried. Started a whole new life. She couldn’t bother to come back—” Billy shakes his head a little to stop himself from going further, Steve sees the cigarette quiver when he sucks it dry. “It doesn’t fucking matter, anyway.”

Steve swallows around the constriction in his throat, past the sour threat of vomit. Even in the dark, everything is vivid and painful to look at, but Billy is right there, and there’s something he’s trying to tell Steve and Steve can’t miss it. It’s been almost a week since he’s seen Billy and he’s missed him, a deep ache that’s twisted him inside out. 

Billy flicks the cigarette down and grinds it into the dirt. “Let’s get out of here,” he says. “Go to your place.”

“We can’t,” Steve says, and his voice feels foreign against his tongue. “My parents—”

Then Billy looks at him, and he catches the remnants of a swollen eye. It must’ve been closed at one point. God dammit.

“I see.”

Steve takes a step closer, reaching up and Billy steps back like a rankled animal. He widens his eyes, and snaps his hand back, pure instinct in his move before hissing between his teeth, his mouth turning into a frown. 

“I’m sorry,” Steve whispers, dropping his hand to his side. Everything is so fucked, and Steve’s missed Billy so fucking much, and he doesn’t care. He doesn’t care if his parents find him with a boy in his bed, he doesn’t care if they even fucking hear him from the other side of the house with his headboard banging into the wall. Maybe then they’ll give a shit. 

“Okay,” Steve says, settled on the decision. _Fuck it_ , he thinks “Let’s go back to my place.” 

Billy turns to walk to his car. Steve calls his name. 

“Under one condition.”

“I don’t do conditions.” Billy’s voice is hard as steel. 

“Stay the night,” Steve says. “Don’t go back there to that. We’ll figure it out, but just—please stay the night, okay?”

“I’m gonna have to go back, eventually.”

Steve cards a hand through his hair. It’s sticky with hair spray. “Yeah,” Steve agrees. “You will. But you don’t have to tonight.” 

Then Billy meets his gaze, and Steve can see everything. He can see the blue of them even from this distance, has memorized them to find them in his dreams. It’s pathetic, ridiculous really, and he sounds like those freshman girls that walk through the mall babbling about how in love they are, but he doesn’t care. All he wants is this one night. 

“Fine,” Billy says. “I’ll park my car up the road and you can drive the rest of the way.”

The house is quiet and dark when they sneak in, and it’s in the dim light of Steve’s room that he gets to see all the damage that Neil Hargrove has done. Billy’s mottled with contusions, some new, some old, all in a rainbow of coloration and stages of healing. Steve brushes his fingertips over each other, places open-mouthed kisses on others. Billy strips until he’s in nothing but his underwear and gingerly climbs into Steve’s bed. 

Billy always curls up into himself when he goes to sleep, Steve realizes, and he does it again this time too. Billy passes out instantly, and Steve studies the dark circles under his eyes, the scabbed split of his lip, the aftermath of a ring catching on the skin of his eyebrow. Steve’s eyes burn, and he blinks that back, licks his lips, and turns out the light. 

Billy then turns over and scoots into Steve, flushing his back into Steve’s chest. Warmth cascades all over him, and he wraps carefully around Billy’s middle, buries his nose in the nape of Billy’s neck. He falls asleep to Billy fingers tight around his wrist.


	11. Chapter 11

The scenery shifts as they drive further south, the mountains fading into the distance. It smells different, more arid, the landscape more desolate. Steve rolls down the window to study the world in front of them as they rush past at top speed. It flickers like a flipbook, and he can never get enough of what’s in front of him, but the horizon is always steady.

Robin finds a hotel for them to rest again, having been up since the break of dawn, and Dustin immediately collapses on a bed and passes out. Steve’s exhausted too, but can’t shake the feeling that they’re _so close_ , and something about that keeps his heart hammering and his eyes alert and his brain a fuzzy blend of sleepiness and awareness. 

He’s lying down on the bed, staring at the creaking ceiling fan. The room has the faded hint of cigarette smoke, masked with a terrible air freshener. The bed is squeaky and the pillows are lumpy, and Dustin is breathing even with the squeaking fan. 

Robin sits down on the bed next to him and nods to the other bed. “He’ll be out until the morning for sure.”

Steve rubs a hand over his face. “He needs to call his mom or something. I feel like we’ve kidnapped him and at any moment the FBI will find us.”

“You gotta chill, man,” Robin assures. “He called his mom yesterday. When we were at a rest stop,” she explains at Steve’s raised eyebrow. “She thinks he’s on some grand vacation with you. Which, I guess technically he is.” 

Robin glances over to Dustin’s sleeping body, spread wide on the bed as he lies on his stomach. His hair is a mess, the hat tossed on a random table in the room, and he shuffles a bit, changes his position and murmurs something before settling back down again. 

“I can’t believe he demanded to go on this fucking chase to find Billy.”

Robin’s silent for a long time, earning Steve’s attention. She blinks. “Seriously? I can. That kid will follow you anywhere. He said he would die with you, remember?”

Steve remembers. He also remembers shrugging and thinking, _well fuck it, if I die at least I will not be alone this time_ , and just letting the thought sit inside of him. It shouldn’t surprise him that Dustin would do this with Steve, but he is. 

“Yeah,” Steve says. “You’re right.”

“Duh,” Robin says, adjusting on the bed, making it groan in protest. She wrinkles her nose. “I’m so glad that we are only staying here for one night. This bed is terrible.”

“Dustin keeps insisting that we camp somewhere. He brought all that camping equipment.”

Robin mulls on this. “Yeah, it’s not a bad idea. I’m sure your parents will know about all these charges you’re making on the credit card, right?”

The answer to that question is no. His parents have an accountant who takes care of their finances, and Steve has full carte blanche on the charges. Alden doesn’t even bat an eyelash when he reviews Steve's statements, just sends the money to the account to pay it off every month. The only time it became an issue was when he bought a keg for a party that Trevor was throwing and Alden didn’t even tell his father then, it was dumb luck his Dad looked at the stupid statements. 

“They don’t care,” Steve says. “They never have.” 

“Oh,” Robin says, chewing on the side of her cheek. “Well, then why are we subsisting on Doritos and Jolt? We could eat like kings and you’re holding out. You owe me, Harrington. I’m putting all these miles on Betty, after all.”

Steve laughs, his hands resting on his stomach. Robin’s hair is up in a messy bun, small tendrils of hair framing her face and her eyes are bright as she smiles wide. Steve thinks about how Robin also refused to let Steve go on this journey without her, and, like Dustin, was also willing to die if that’s what it took. Maybe not as blatant, but it was there. 

“Thanks for doing this,” Steve whispers. “I don’t know what the fuck we are doing, but... Thanks anyway.”

“It’s better than working at the video store and dealing with assholes all day,” Robin says, moving down on the bed until she’s on her back. Her arm brushes against Steve’s and it’s warm and soft. “I can’t wait to get out of Hawkins. If I can’t leave Indiana because I’m too poor, the least I can do is get out of that hellhole.”

Steve will miss this. He doesn’t know where he will be in the next couple of months, but it seems everyone else has a plan. They’re going to college, they’re starting high school. Time is moving forward for everyone and Steve feels stuck, on a never-ending loop that he’s running and going nowhere. 

“I knew his mom was in Nebraska,” Steve confesses. “He told me about her before... everything. He found her. I don’t know why he sent me to her, but—” Steve swallows hard. “It must mean _something_ , right?”

Robin bites her bottom lip, eyes focused on the ceiling. “Yeah,” she says, settling on a response. “Yeah, it’s gotta mean something.”

“She left him.”

Robin turns to Steve eyes wide. “What?” 

“Yeah, she told me, back when we saw her. She was, like, worried about her safety. Neil... knew people.” 

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Robin whispers, shaking her head in disbelief. “That’s heavy shit, dude.” 

Steve’s laugh is without humor, “No kidding.” 

“We’ll find him,” Robin says with finality. “I don’t know how, but we will find him.” 

Steve sucks in a deep breath until it fills his stomach and blows it out again. _In three; out five_ , he thinks the memory of Nancy’s calming voice rich in his mind. Robin thinks they’ll find him. Robin who practically quit her job that’s providing her money for college, and Dustin who’s mom thinks he’s hanging out with friends on some vacation when in reality he’s on a trip to places unknown. Steve wonders if they will find Billy. He wonders if he’ll look the same. 

“You won’t know unless you try,” Robin says, and Steve realizes he said the last bit out loud. She turns to him, a smirk on her lips, and pushes an elbow into his arm. “Cheer up Charlie Brown. Let’s get some sleep. Big day tomorrow.”

Steve doesn’t dream that night. Small mercies.

***

They’re in the desert. It’s nothing but brush, and cacti, and sandy earth. The mountains are worn from erosion and existence, a stark contrast from the craggy facades in Colorado. The sun is hotter, the air thick with dry heat that leaves Steve gasping for breath when he opens the door of the van to step outside.

“Holy shit,” Dustin breathes. He rolls the sleeves of his t-shirt up to his shoulders. “This is unreal.”

They’ve parked in front of a random restaurant that Steve hopes is open. Truth or Consequences, as the sign stated when they drove into the small town, is only populated by 5,687 people who are insane. Steve’s never felt heat like this before, where it’s like it’s sucking him dry, leaving him dizzy and thirsty. 

“Dude, this place better be open,” Dustin announces, walking towards the entrance door with a level of surety that has Steve grinning. When the door opens Dustin beams at his friends. “Hell yes,” he says, pumping a gleeful fist into the air.

The restaurant is small and dark. Steve’s vision flickers with spots from the sun, and he blinks several times to adjust. The place is dated, but bursting with customers, and the hostess is gleeful to help settle them into a worn booth with the vinyl peeling underneath them. It pokes into Steve’s leg. 

Dustin doesn’t care about the aesthetic at all, observing the menu with a reverence that Steve hasn’t seen since that new DC comic came out last fall. The delight on his face rivals when he’s created a new character for one of Will’s D&D campaigns, and while Steve barely understands what the hell they are doing when it comes to Dungeons and Dragons, the few times he had to be a random side character, he’s always secretly enjoyed the company. Even if he will never admit that hanging out with a bunch of teens is one highlight of his week. 

“I know this isn’t super fancy,” Steve says, leaning towards Robin with a low voice. “But I hope this counts for something.”

Robin slants a tired smile as she reads over the menu. “A for effort, Steve.” 

Steve chuckles, and leans back into the booth, closing his eyes. He slept for a few hours, and it’s more than he’s had in a long time. He woke up to a dark night sky bordering on morning, right as the sun paints the horizon into something unpredictable and new. Robin and Dustin were fast asleep, always able to turn off their minds and just... let go. Steve’s jealous of that. 

He had taken that morning to walk around the motel, with a sky speckled in a pink-purple glow, stars dappled amongst the brightened clouds. He got Robin and Dustin some breakfast sandwiches at a donut shop that opened early, and took their breakfast, and sat on a metal bench nearby. Holding his coffee and food, Steve watched cars drive by on the highway, off to work, home, somewhere else. 

A server comes and introduces herself, taking their drink order. Dustin orders a coke, but then catches himself, glancing at Steve and Robin with a raised eyebrow. Steve realizes he’s asking permission. 

“Dustin, get whatever you want, man. But just make sure you get water too. It’s hot as hell out there.” He turns to the server with an apologetic smile. “No offense.”

“Oh honey, you don’t have to tell me twice. It’s like Satan’s asscrack this summer.” She taps her pen on her notepad, listening as Robin orders a lemonade and some kind of appetizer. 

The food tastes incredible. Even though Steve’s appetite is nonexistent, he forces himself through the meal, makes sure that he eats until he’s satisfied because the last thing he needs is to end up in the hospital in the middle of nowhere in the desert. Dustin is beyond elated about his mammoth of a burger, equipped with several patties of meat and loaded with every topping in existence. By the end, Dustin is leaning back in his seat, hands rested on his belly and a dopey smile on his face. 

“That,” he says with a blissful sigh, “was amazing.”

“Okay, so I think we need to kinda ask around about where this poem is,” Robin says, pulling out a tiny notebook in the back of her pocket. She flips through the pages written with her loopy script each page covered in what appears to be notes. After a few mutters of, _No not this_ she lands on the page she’s been looking for.

Before Robin can get a word out, Dustin interrupts, leaning forward and pushing his plate out of the way and placing folded hands on the table. “What Robin is saying is,” Dustin begins, his eyes focused on her tiny notebook. “Is that because this town is so small we don’t know how receptive people will be to us poking around to find some random poem.”

Steve sighs. “You think we need to get in detective mode about this? Can’t we just ask our server if she knows anything about it and give her a huge tip for her… you know, efforts?”

Dustin beams. “That’s a very good idea, Steve. I think that’s precisely what we should do.”

Robin laughs so hard her shoulders are shaking and bumping into Steve. He rolls his eyes and shakes his head. “You planned this didn’t you?”

A loud wheeze escapes from Robin’s lips and Dustin joins her. Steve leans against the wall next to their booth, crossing his arms with a glare. “You guys are assholes.”

“Okay, the point of this isn’t to make fun of you,” Robin admits, adjusting her topknot. “It’s about making sure that you felt, like, involved and stuff.” 

A warmth of comfort spreads through Steve and he drops his arms. “Well, I appreciate that. So let’s ask Janice where the hell to find this poem and get the hell out of here.” 

“Her name is Jamie,” Dustin says. 

Steve shrugs. “Same difference.” 

“Our fearless leader,” Robin mutters, flagging down the server. “What would we do without you?”

“Perish,” Steve says with certainty, and Dustin laughs.

***

The town is so small they could almost walk to the destination if it wasn’t over 100 degrees at one o’clock in the afternoon. Even in the van the dry heat is all encompassing, making it difficult to navigate. Steve turns up the AC all the way, waiting in the parking lot for Betty to cool down before they drive to their next destination. It takes a few moments for her to catch up, the heat so overpowering the car struggles to cool down.

Jamie was more than forthcoming to provide a little bit of history of their tiny town. The poem, _Hell in New Mexico_ is on display in the town’s corner store which serves multiple roles. When they pull into the parking lot, Steve tilts his head, studying the various signs of services the place offers, ranging from pharmacy to car maintenance. 

The small downtown reminds Steve of what Hawkins looked like when he was a kid. Nothing but bright colored buildings glued next to each other, their wide display windows open and naked. Unlike the tiny town in Nebraska, Truth and Consequences has maintained their little city. Everything is clean and painted fresh amongst the “for sale” signs up in the corners. 

As they walk inside, a cold blast of AC hits them with brutal force. Long aisles stretch the entirety of the store, displaying a variety of things for sale. There’s someone sitting in a chair in the front, leaning over the top to read a newspaper. The girl behind the counter can’t be much older than Dustin, her black hair folded into a braid and draping over her shoulder. 

Robin walks up to the counter to speak to the girl who points in a general direction of the store without looking up from her paper. Robin turns around with a blank stare, a clear sign of her annoyance and tilts her head in the proper direction. 

The poem is in a frame with no notable significance. It just sits against the wall, by the restrooms no less, in a 5x7 frame. Steve swallows down the urge to scream, as Dustin approaches the poem for closer inspection. 

“I can’t find patterns or anything with this,” Dustin murmurs, his eyes so close to the frame Steve is certain he’s cross-eyed. “I was hoping there would be a cipher or something, but... nothing.” 

Robin huffs an annoyed sigh. “This isn’t World War 2, Dustin. I don’t think he’d have enough time to develop a cipher in a random poem near a smelly men’s room.”

Steve wrinkles his eyebrows in confusion. “What’s a cipher?” 

The question earns equal deadpan stares from both Robin and Dustin. Steve raises his hands in surrender. “Okay, fine, sorry I asked.”

“Did you seriously not pay attention to Ms Thompson’s History class in Junior year?” Robin asks, searching around the frame, glancing over her shoulder for a moment before pulling it off the wall. Her face lights up, and she tucks the frame under her arm, a long finger pointing to the wall.

Steve and Dustin crowd behind her. Right there, carved into the old wooden paneling of a random convenience store in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, are the coordinates:

  
** 36.0544° N, 112.1401° W **  
  


Right next to them, in a smaller carving are the initials _B.H._

“This shit just keeps getting better, and better,” Dustin murmurs in awe. Robin and Steve look at him. “What? This is genius! No one would know what this is, and because of where he put it no one will bother to look. Hurry and jot this down before people question what the hell we are doing here.”

Robin rolls her eyes, and hands Steve the frame as she writes the coordinates in her notebook. Steve continues to look at the chipped wood, the way the knife caught on a knot, making a number catch funny. He lifts a single finger and traces the etching, hoping that he can feel something of Billy against it. 

He feels nothing. 

Steve clears his throat and sets the frame back onto the nail with ease. “Did you get everything?” he asks, and when Robin nods, he turns and walks down the long, cluttered, claustrophobic aisles. Outside is still stifling and oppressive, but at least he can stare at the mountains for a moment to get his bearings. They’re eroded and worn from years of living, and that’s something Steve understands.

***

Steve isn’t sure how Dustin figures out they have to go to the Grand Canyon, but Robin pulls out the big Atlas, spreads it across the mattress in the back of the van while sipping on a pop, and says, “Go north on 25, and then we will head west on…” she squints down at the paper and nods. “Yeah, 60 and then we’re gonna figure it out from there.”

“That sounds ominous,” Dustin says next to her, searching in several bags and groaning. “Okay, we totally need to stock up on food, and someone ate my Doritos. Who was it?”

Robin climbs up through the van towards the driver side when she and Steve share a long stare. She points at Steve and he shrugs, only to point back at her. She shrugs in return. 

“Are you seriously going to play this game?” Dustin demands, waving around the empty bag of chips. “I am a growing child, I need nourishment!”

Robin snorts. “There is hardly any nutritional value in that trash bag, so don’t even go there. You’ve been living off of chocolate, pop, and chips since the moment we left Hawkins.” 

“Oh shut up,” Dustin says with a roll of his eyes. “Also we need to hit up a laundromat or something. The van smells funny back here.”

“He has a point,” Steve murmurs, cracking the window a little. “Why don’t we just try to find the next biggest town or something and stock up and reorganize?”

“Sounds like a plan. Dustin, keep an eye out for a bigger city, and pull out that Almanac you got and see if any of them have a decent population. If it’s big enough, we can get everything we need done.” 

Steve rolls his neck towards the massive desert in front of them. Everything is dull green and brown, tumbleweeds rolling in the same direction as they’re driving. He didn’t even know Dustin had an almanac. How much shit can he carry in that backpack? 

“Aye aye el capitan!” Dustin chirps, rolling onto his back with a sigh. Steve leans over and turns the volume up on the radio. 

He wakes with a jolt when Robin slams on the breaks, leaving Betty screeching to a noisy halt. Steve’s heart palpitates so hard that it resonates in his toes. 

“Dude, what the hell was that?” Dustin snaps, his head appearing between them, before his jaw goes slack with shock. “Holy shit.”

Holy shit indeed. The line of traffic is so long and backed up it’s difficult to make out what’s in front of them. Several cars sit on the side of the road waiting, the passengers leaning against their tired vehicles, looking just as weary. 

“It’s gotta be a car accident,” Robin notes when a cop car rushes past them through the median on the left side, barreling down the desert brush like a bat out of hell. It would be funny if Steve wasn’t still trying to wake up from his little nap. He rubs his face, and sighs. 

“Do you think we should keep going until we get to another exit and then get off?” 

Robin shakes her head. “That’s what everyone will be doing. We could try to ask someone how long they’ve been waiting, but at the rate that the traffic is moving, we’re better off just staying on the road than stopping.”

Steve takes the information for what it is, and Dustin announces something about how he’s glad they have the coffee can. Steve wants to remind Dustin that they can pull off on the side of the road, because Betty is a fucking boat of a car, and between the three of them he’s fairly certain they can figure out a sure fire way for no one to see someone’s ass in the call of duty. He just hopes it doesn’t come down to that. 

Madonna croons on the radio, having taken a break from their mixtapes just to give themselves a chance to miss them. She’s singing about how she’s pregnant and pleading to her father she wants to keep her baby and loves her boyfriend. It’s heartbreaking in that teenage _whoops_ kind of way, and Steve’s heard of similar rumors at Hawkins High, where girls disappeared and came back the next year quiet and worn, appearing older than they should be. 

He wants to change the channel but he can’t because off in the distance, against the sunset and the brush and a cluster of cacti, there’s Billy. Steve knows for a fucking fact it’s him, with his back to the highway, his hair blowing behind him in the hot setting sun, and the single moment they have to stop again from traffic, Steve is ripping off his seatbelt and tumbling out of the van. 

There’s shouting and protests and his name, and he doesn’t care because he’s found Billy, and he’s here, right in the middle of nowhere, right on the precipice between real and fantasy, and Steve has found him. The longer Steve runs, his breath growing thinner in the radiating heat of the earth, he loses sight of him, the silhouette of Billy’s frame fading away like that day at the mall. 

It’s a mirage. A mere trick of the eye. 

“Holy shit, Steve,” Dustin gasps, holding onto his knees as he sucks in huge lungfuls of breath. “What the actual fuck are you doing? Have you lost your mind? We are in the middle of nowhere and you're—” 

He stops when Steve drops to his knees and covers his face, the dusty dirt kicking up into his mouth and making his eyes sting more. He’s such a fool, such silly fool for thinking it would be this easy. That Billy has sent him on this sadistic journey to play at Steve’s heart. He always did shit like this and no one will understand how much his heart is breaking right now, how much he wishes for the earth to swallow him whole. 

A small part of him begs to be sucked into the Upside Down just so he can no longer have to suffer anymore. It wouldn’t be a quick death, but he’d have a guaranteed end. 

Steve’s shoulders shake violently, and he doesn’t know if he’s laughing or crying, and when Dustin places a tentative hand on his shoulder, whispers something like, “What's going on?” it’s then that everything inside of Steve breaks and spills out of him. It’s then that he can no longer contain this thing festering within him. He rips his hands away from his face, tilts his head up to the sky and _screams_ as loud as he can. It’s primal, and hoarse and loud, echoing into the distance, mixing in the breeze with the sound of traffic behind them, with the noise of car horns and tires against the road. 

He wraps his arms around his middle, screams again, and this time it’s shaky, more real. This time the clawing in his chest shifts to a painful twist, and the choked sobs that pour from his lips are raw as the dirt on his knees. 

Arms wrap around him from behind, the murmur of Robin’s voice against his neck, whispering in fierce command, “Take a breath, Steve, come on, you can do it.” When he tries to breathe in, it comes out as brutal hiccups, and he feels utterly stupid, so fucking lame, that he’s losing his shit in bumfuck nowhere, for what? 

Steve leans back into Robin’s embrace, just gives in to the exhaustion, and there’s another pair of hands on him— _Dustin_ , he thinks. Betty’s slanted on the side of the road, her ass hanging out haphazardly as cars slowly make their way around. Steve tries to tumble into the front seat, but Dustin gently pulls him to the back, opens the door and helps him crawl inside. He doesn’t bother opening his eyes, just slides to the very edge of the mattress on the floor, and curls into a ball. Someone lifts his head and places a pillow under him, covers him in a blanket. 

He falls asleep with tears sitting between his eyelashes.


	12. Chapter 12

Scoops becomes Steve’s second home. He insists on picking up multiple shifts to avoid his Dad’s lectures about graduating and not doing anything with his life. Eventually the words blend in one long slow motion noise, stretched out and elongated, and it’s then Steve thinks about Billy. 

He wanted to take a gap year, get in his car and see where he could go. But his father nixed that when he found out about the college applications he failed to send out, that his GPA wasn’t what he expected, that he was a failure. His father didn’t say that part out loud, but Steve could see it in the lines of his forehead, in the disdain in his eyes.

It’s a countdown until they leave again. 

Steve’s mind wanders as he makes sundaes, loading boats filled to the brim with whipped cream, and ice cream cones dipped in chocolate. He daydreams about warm, bright sun shining down on him with the windows turned down in his car, going top notch speed through an empty highway. He thinks about blaring music over thick air whipping through his hair and when he turns over, there’s Billy, his arm hanging out of the window on the side, sucking on a cigarette, like he has all the time in the world. 

Steve brings it up one night, after work when Billy shows up unannounced. His parents left, away to some beach house on the east coast, and his mother asked him if he wanted to go and Steve used work as an excuse. He loved going to that beach house when he was a kid, it was the one thing that they used to do as a family, almost every year, and then that was taken from him too. It was as though the more that Steve didn’t need to rely on an adult, the more his parents drifted away. 

So he’s thinking about long stretches of highway, warm summer sun, and Billy next to him. He’s thinking about that when he hears the Camaro roll up into his driveway. He thinks about how much he wants Billy with him all the time when he knocks on the door in the same three sharp knocks as he always does. 

Billy’s standing there, his hair a mess, shirt wrinkled, the neck pulled loose. His cheeks are flushed in that angry way they get, and his eyes are dimmed in that way they get when he’s been with his dad. 

“Fuck this,” he says instead of a greeting, walking past Steve and pushing him against the door when they get inside. His breath smells a little sour, and his voice is gravelly and low when he talks, but his mouth is hot against Steve’s neck and he can’t help the sigh that comes from that. “Fuck my pops, fuck Hawkins, fuck everything,” Billy mutters into Steve’s skin. “I will figure something out. Figure out a way to get the hell out of here.”

Steve’s stomach flips in excitement. He wants to tell him how he feels the same, that he understands, but he takes Billy’s hand, guides him up to his bedroom, and begins stripping. Billy catches on, kicking off his boots, and then his jeans and shirt. He’s not wearing any underwear, he never does when he wants to mess around, and something about that puts everything inside of Steve aflame. 

Steve is prepared to get fucked again. They’ve done it a couple more times, and Steve’s realized he really enjoys getting fucked. Like, really, really, enjoys it. He loves the way that Billy softens around the edges when he’s pushing inside of him, the way that his eyes flutter shut right before he starts to say the dirtiest shit Steve’s ever heard. Steve loves the way it loosens that tightened coil inside of him too, and when they’re laying together afterwards, sated and exhausted, Steve sleeps better than he has for over a year. 

But the moment he uncaps the lube, Billy snatches it from his hand and shakes his head. This time he pours a liberal amount on his fingers, flings the condom onto Steve’s chest and says, “Suit up, pretty boy.” before shoving God only knows how many fingers inside of himself. 

It takes a few beats for Steve to catch up that Billy is going to let Steve fuck him. 

Billy ends up taking over with the condom part, mostly because Steve’s hands can’t stop shaking. No one says anything about that, thank God, because it’s embarassing as fuck to not be able to do a simple task that Steve has had plenty of practice doing in the past. But all of that goes out the window when Billy straddles him, that untamed smile stretching over his face as he murmurs, “It’s my turn this time.”

Afterwards, when Billy has literally fucked Steve into the mattress so hard he’s sure there’ll be an indentation of evidence, they stay still, lying on their backs with the sound of the radio playing softly in the background. Steve’s skin is still slick with sweat, his dick a little hard and he’s loose-limbed and relaxed. Later he tells himself that because he was so fucked out it’s why he said what he said. 

“Maybe we could just get in a car and go,” Steve says. 

Billy reaches for a cigarette on the bedside table, props it into his mouth and lights the end. He grabs for a tray that Steve leaves for times like this, and sets it on his stomach when he lays down. 

“Where would we go?” Billy asks, handing over the cigarette to Steve. 

Steve shrugs, sucking in a deep breath of smoke filled nicotine. He loves smoking after sex. Something about the ritual makes Steve think it’s just something they do together, and it’s saved just for these moments they have together. Just for them. 

“Anywhere,” Steve says, passing back the cigarette. “Wherever the road takes us. Just get in the car and… go. Drive.”

Billy’s quiet for a long time. He keeps focusing on the ceiling, sucking the cigarette down to the filter. When he snuffs it out, he sets the tray back on the table and rolls over towards Steve. 

“Where would you like to go?” 

Steve sucks in a deep breath, closes his eyes and imagines expansive terrain and never ending sky. He shrugs, aiming for nonchalance, and feeling like he missed the mark completely. 

When he finally looks at Billy, he’s waiting patiently. 

“Grand Canyon would be cool. I’ve always wanted to go.”

“Yeah,” he says, his eyes searching over Steve’s face, and landing on his mouth. “Then we should do that.” 

“Stay,” Steve says, resting a hand on Billy’s chest. “Don’t go back. Just… stay.”

Billy nods, and says, “Okay.” 

Steve doesn’t fall asleep right away like Billy does. Instead, he watches how Billy’s shoulders rise and fall as he sleeps, the deep breathing of his dreams. Steve wraps an arm around his waist, the affection he’s feeling in his chest bursting to get out. He brushes his lips against Billy’s shoulder, places a chaste kiss against the salty skin and tries out the words into the darkness. 

Nothing changes when he says _I love you_. The world doesn’t split apart, the sky doesn’t fall, and they’re still there, in his bedroom, just the two of them, with nothing but the summer breeze and the smell of sex on their skin. Steve falls asleep then, contented, and thinks that maybe he can try it out another time when Billy’s not asleep. 

When he wakes up in the morning, he reaches out for Billy, and turns to find that he’s not in the bed. Steve searches the house, looking for him, until he notices the only car in the driveway is the BMW.

***

Billy is avoiding Steve.

He doesn’t see him again, Billy doesn’t come to Scoops, isn’t there when he’s dropping the kids off at the arcade, and Max is dodgy when he asks her about where Billy’s been. She doesn’t give the same air of protection as she did before, which means that Billy told her not to tell him, and that hurts. 

It hurts a lot. 

The house feels bigger and more empty now that Billy doesn’t come over. Steve’s left with nothing but his thoughts, and so he tries to distract himself with work, and hanging out with Dustin (at one point getting roped into some D&D campaign where Steve got knocked out within the first five minutes, much to Lucas’s glee and Will’s shy smile), even taking time to go to the diner with Nancy and Jonathan. 

Everything is fine. Or so that’s what Steve tells himself. He tells himself this as he’s pouring some kind of hunch punch at a random ass party he’s at into a plastic cup, downing it in one go. It tastes like fucking gasoline, burns like a hot poker has been shoved into Steve’s stomach, and it all gives way to a nice buzz and numbness that Steve really likes. 

He’s hoping that he’ll see Billy here, just like he did on that first night when they went to the quarry. But he doesn’t, Billy’s nowhere to be found. Someone drives Steve home afterwards, he doesn’t remember who, and when he wakes up the next day he almost calls out of work, but decides to just push through and go. The sight of ice cream makes his stomach twist with nausea, and hard to concentrate. Then Robin says something. 

“Okay, what happened?” she says, hip leaning against the counter as Steve cleans off another table for the 500th time that day. He swallows the threat of bile in the back of his throat, and closes his eyes, pushes forward. He’s shoved a fucking dead demogorgan into a freezer before and didn’t lose his stomach, he can manage a damn hangover. 

“Nothing,” Steve grumbles, scrubbing onto a sticky spot harder. He throws the towel down when it doesn’t come loose. 

“Dude, don’t take your teenage angst out on the table. The table has done nothing to you,” Robin says, her voice tinged with her usual mockery. Steve’s not in the mood for it. He’s nauseous as hell, his head hurts, and he wants to lie down and never wake up again. 

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Steve says, putting away the supplies. “It doesn’t matter anyway.”

“You and the boyfriend get into a fight?” Robin asks in a low voice, her eyebrows raised. When Steve pointedly ignores her question, she clicks her tongue. “Makes sense.” 

“First of all, he’s not my _boyfriend_ ,” Steve snaps. “Second of all, what the hell do you mean, ‘makes sense’?”

“You look like a girl who didn’t get asked to the prom, and you were so trashed last night you nearly made a fool of yourself. If it wasn’t for me rescuing you—”

“Wait, you were at that party last night?”

Robin’s eyes widen. “Jesus, you don’t remember?” 

Steve bites his cheek hard and shakes his head. He remembers a blur of music, bodies, and kissing a girl that ended up with her laughing and him laughing and then someone pulled him into a car and he was taken home. Somehow the BMW still ended up in his driveway when he woke the next day and he was thankful. 

“Wow, okay, so you showed up looking mopey as hell, like someone, I don’t know, ran over your dog or something—”

“I don’t have any pets.”

“Not the point, Harrington, pay attention, okay?” Robin says with frustration. “You drank a lot of that hunch punch and got totally stupid, made out with Katie O’Riley, which, ew, and then I came over and took you home. You’re welcome, by the way. You can pay me back later.”

“If you’re ever at a party and making an ass of yourself, I will be sure to take you home accordingly.”

“Or you could just buy me food,” Robin counters with a shrug. “Anyway, you kinda gave it away in the car. Moaning about how you wished Billy was there, and he wasn’t, and… You were ridiculous, but you weren’t… okay.” 

Steve hides his face in his hands. “Oh my God, seriously? Please tell me I did not announce this at the party. Because if I did I am going to literally move tomorrow, fuck whatever my parents think. I’ll go to Florida, or like, I don’t know, the Pacific Northwest. Never been to Seattle. I hear it’s cool.”

“Seattle is a lot of heroin and rain, don’t bother.” Robin sighs, tapping her fingernail onto the counter. “And to answer your question, no, you didn’t make a fool of yourself at the party. Everyone thought you were fun. I seemed to be the only one who noticed you weren’t happy.” 

Steve damn near ends up at Billy’s house. He knows where he lives because he offers Max a ride one day when they’re all at Lucas’s house hanging out. It’s obvious that something is going on between the two of them, the way that they hold hands and try to pretend like they’re not actually doing it. She doesn’t let Lucas get away with anything, and it’s hilarious to watch. But when he takes her home that night he sees Billy’s Camaro in the driveway, and he says nothing when he drops her off. 

He considers calling Billy, looking up his phone number in the white pages. But every time he starts hitting that last number, he hangs up. When he can’t sleep he goes the quarry but even there it’s empty with nothing but the thick summer night air, the stars, and the sound of crickets. 

Steve feels a little like a damn stalker, but he just _misses_ him. Steve misses Billy’s laugh, misses the way he gets breathless when he comes, misses how hot his skin feels under his hands. He even misses Billy’s sharp tongue, his urge to cut deep, the way his jaw tightens when he’s mad. Misses how rough he sounds when he calls him pretty boy as he makes Steve unravel under him. He misses waking up next to him.

In the end Steve pushes that all away, hopes that Billy will show up at his job without invitation, just like he did in the beginning. He hangs around the parking lot, smoking a cigarette as if to lure Billy back to where it all began, but is left with nothing but the summer heat of the day left behind in the night. 

He sees neither sight nor sound of Billy Hargrove for two weeks. Dustin comes back, and Steve is excited for the first time in weeks. 

And that’s when they discover that Russians have a secret lab under the mall, when the Mind Flayer comes back, and Billy sacrifices himself to save the world. It’s the day that Steve finally breaks.  
  


* * *

  


Somewhere before the Grand Canyon and about a hundred miles out of Truth or Consequences, they stop for supplies, gas, and a laundromat. The place is sketchy as hell, all grime, dirt, and hot hot air. The place is pretty much an open floor plan and when Robin comes back with a huge pocket full of quarters, she navigates around the place like she’s done this before.

“Not all of us can live in a mansion with like, caviar, and champs, and pools the size of the community one.”

“I hate that pool,” Steve says, watching as Robin fills the proper trays with detergent and dumps in everyone’s clothes at once. They’ve basically been living together for a week, nothing but close quarters, and it shows by the way Dustin has somehow managed to get his ass inside one of the laundry carts and is pushing himself down the empty aisle back and forth. 

At first Steve felt a little suffocated by it all. By sitting in a van for hours at a time, with a mattress and a bunch of bags of junk food just to keep them going until they got to some kind of drive thru or place more substantial. But now he realizes he’s going to miss this, because it will have to end eventually. Robin will be starting classes in the fall, and Dustin will be going to Hawkins High with the rest of the crew, and Steve will...Well, who the fuck knows what’s going to happen to him. 

Thankfully Dustin grows bored of the lack of attention he gets from his daredevil adventures with the laundry cart, and eventually settles down with a book. He doesn’t leave the cart though, but Steve considers it a win since he was starting to get a bit dizzy watching Dustin whiz back and forth through the place. The book Dustin’s reading is one he got at some used bookshop he found on the way towards the laundromat, and Robin insisted that she’d get the change and they could carry on. 

It was old and musty and cramped, so cramped and filled with books that they had piles on the floor to make up for the overstock they had on the shelves. Steve worried most about either breaking his neck by tripping over one of the piles, or losing Dustin in the maze of it all. Fortunately Dustin’s enthusiasm has no volume control, and he was able to keep up with him the entire hour and a half they were there. 

Robin props herself up on the folding table, her legs dangling over the side, and it reminds Steve of the times they would work together at Scoops. Another lifetime ago, when the idea of Hawkins having a mall was brilliant and wondrous. It was a place where everything was contained, with that appearance of what they had all seen on TV but had to drive about 30 minutes to view. Bloomington had a mall long before Hawkins, but the drive was a pain in the ass, and so the kids regulated to the diner, and the arcade or the quarry. It was how it was. 

Of course, the mall has been replaced, and Steve has no intention of ever going back to that. 

They don’t even bother folding the clothes, just shoving what they can into their bags. Dustin carries the sheet for the mattress and the pillow cases over his shoulder, hops into the back of the van with the ease of someone who’s done it a million times before, and begins to assemble everything without a word. They hit up a Taco Bell and buy an obscene amount of hard and soft tacos, and after much pleading Steve relents and buys Dustin some nachos. 

“You really spoil him, you know,” Robin says with amusement around a mouthful of soft taco. 

“You have sour cream on your chin,” Steve says, looking over his shoulder before getting on the highway. “And I do not.”

“Yeah, you do. It’s actually sweet.” Dustin is moaning in the back in apparent nachoed bliss, and Robin turns around and says, “Listen, kid, you better not get nacho crumbs all over the sheets. We literally just washed the boy funk out of it. I got the nice fabric softener.” 

“Steve, you are the best, have I ever told you that?” Dustin says with reverence. 

“Not nearly enough,” Steve mutters, reaching out and wiggling his fingers for a taco. The bag shuffles and he’s handed a delightful taco concoction. His stomach growls in happiness. 

They’re hours away from the Grand Canyon when it occurs to Steve the whole point of this trip. It hits him like one of the semis he’s seen swirving on the road, trying desperately to get to their next destination. Steve empathizes with that, gets the toe curling anticipation, and the thrill of the unknown. Somewhere on the highway, in another desert, on the border of New Mexico and Arizona, the night stippled with thousands of stars he figures it out.

He remembers the conversation he had with Billy about them running away together, finding where the road will take them. He remembers the battle that warred over Billy’s face. He remembers how badly he wanted them to leave right then and there. 

So this journey does have meaning. It does mean something. It’s not exactly an apology, but Steve will take it as one nonetheless.

***

Steve drives through the night until his vision blurs and he has to pull off on a rest stop to wake up Robin. The sun is already greeting the day, bright and overwhelming against fat fluffy clouds in the blue sky. They sit high above the flat earth, filled with sage brush for miles and miles, mixed with brown dirt that carried clouds of dust so thick it appeared solid to the touch.

Robin jolts awake when he brushes back a stray hair, her eyes squinting in the brightness. “Where are we?” she asks her voice hoarse, and scratchy. 

“Honestly, I don’t know,” Steve says, rubbing at his eyes to clear the blurriness. “I just kept driving until I couldn’t and pulled off before it became a safety risk.”

Robin stretches her arms above her head. “Which translates to you went long past you were supposed to.” She peers around at the parking lot of the random gas station he found and nods. “Okay, you need to sleep, and I need coffee.” She opens the door to get out and says, “We’re switching.” 

She finds them a local bakery that smells of baked bread and has a line almost out the door. Steve sways on his feet from exhaustion, and when he leans into Robin with his eyes closed, she slides an arm over his shoulders, shoves the keys into his hand and says, “Go rest. I promise I’ll get something you’ll like.”

Steve almost argues that she doesn’t know what he likes, but then he remembers that they have literally been in close quarters for all hours of the day for nearly a week and nods, stumbling to the back of the van. It’s already hot outside, and it’s not even ten AM, and Steve blasts the AC, places the blanket over his eyes to block out the light, and passes out. 

When he wakes again, Dustin is talking about the exact coordinates that were left in Truth or Consequences, saying that it’s somewhere directly in the park. It appears that one of the books he picked up at the used bookstore happened to be everything to know about the Grand Canyon, and while Steve was catching up on sleep, Dustin and Robin began their research.

“You two are such nerds,” Steve mutters tiredly, turning over and closing his eyes again.

“And you love us for it,” Dustin announced. 

Steve can’t really argue with that.

***

He wakes up again to light in his eyes and the announcement that they have finally come to their destination. Dustin climbs into the van, grabbing for the tent and camping gear, not saying a damn word which is tantamount to a Christmas miracle. Before Steve can even begin to get his bearings, Robin and Dustin have a decent sized tent set up and are cooking on the grill.

The smell is delicious and Steve realizes that Robin promised him something to eat from the bakery. “Hey where’s--” 

“Right next to you,” Robin says, focusing on the food in front of her. As Steve begins to sink his teeth into literally the best sausage biscuit he has ever had in his life, he points at the grill with a furrowed eyebrow. 

“Robin made some friends,” Dustin says with a shrug, settling down on a small camping chair. Steve didn’t even know they had a camping chair. 

“Where the hell did you get that?” Steve cries, nearly choking on his sandwich. He’s been living between motels and this van, spending the majority of his time in the car, and he’s pretty sure he didn’t see a camping chair in the midst of it. Steve doesn’t even want to consider how many times he’s rolled into a cooler, a bag of empty snack foods, or the tent. 

“Like I said,” Dustin says, leaning back and placing his hands behind his head, crossing one ankle over his knee. “Robin here made friends.”

“At what cost?” Steve asks over a mouthful of food. 

Robin wiggles her hips, and Dustin laughs. “I asked our neighbors if they could spare some charcoal, told them we were on a trip for you to find your long lost love, and then before you know it, I got some free hotdogs. Buns too.” 

“Really?” Steve asks, impressed. 

“Really.” Robin points the tongs at Dustin. “How many you want?” 

“I’ll just have one for now,” Dustin says around a mouthful of Doritos. He reaches into the bag, grabbing a chip and pointing it at Steve. “So we’ve figured out that the coordinates that were left are to a landmark in the Grand Canyon. Robin said we should go tomorrow, track it down and see what Billy left behind there.”

Steve scrubs his face and nods. “Right.” 

There’s a sense of unease that creeps through his muscles, settles somewhere deep into his bones. He rubs his hands over his pants, brushing away the sweat that’s beading on top. It’s still hot, but not nearly as hot as it was in the desert. 

“Don’t worry about the heat,” Dustin says, as though he’s been reading Steve’s mind. “It drops a lot at night. Worst case you and Robin can have the van.”

“Worse case we land ourselves a cabin and sleep in some kind of air conditioning,” Robin retorts. 

“I don’t know if the cabins have AC,” Dustin says, leaning over and grabbing for his backpack, shoving his hand inside, blindly reaching for what he’s looking for. His face lights up when he finds his bounty. “I’ll have to look that up.”

Steve lays down again, exhaustion coming back over him in a wave. “If my short stint in Boy Scouts taught me anything, it’s always good to have a backup plan.” He pauses before he adds sleepily. “Or what that book with all the kids on the island with the conch do.”

“Lord of the Flies,” Robin and Dustin say unanimously. 

“Yeah, that,” Steve says, turning onto his side, and punching the pillow before resting his head on it. “No conchs in this group, okay?” 

He falls asleep to the sound of Robin and Dustin talking and laughing, the smell of fire and hotdogs filling his senses. 

Steve doesn’t wake again until later that night, turns over to see that Robin is lying next to him, having opted out of crashing on the hard floor of the earth. He can’t blame her, really, the one thing he fucking hates about camping most is waking up with a crick in his neck. Her breathing is heavy, and she’s got a blanket wrapped around her, and in the pale moonlight Steve can still make out the freckles that speckle her face. 

He’s careful when he exits the car, slips on his shoes before his feet hit the ground. They didn’t even bother to close the doors, which was smart because otherwise it would’ve been like baking in an oven. The air is much cooler, just as Dustin said it would be, and the sky, holy shit, it looks like another world. Steve has never seen so many stars. 

They’re all the same stars, too. The same moon. The same sky, morning and night. The same sun that paints different colors in different cities, on different days. But under it all, everything is changing. Including Steve. 

It’s in the middle of the Grand Canyon that Steve realizes that he wants to live. He’s been fighting with the concept of living for so long he’s forgotten how good it feels. How the fighting they did with the Upside Down means that they get to have moments like _this_. Moments where Steve can’t tell where the universe begins, or if it’ll ever end. 

“Steve?” Dustin calls out quietly, his voice heavy with sleep. 

“Yeah, buddy, did I wake you?”

“No,” Dustin says, pulling at the zipper and emerging from the tent. He’s wearing pajama pants and one of Steve’s band t-shirts, his hair a total mess on top of his head. The shirt is far too big for him, but he loves it, and it makes Steve laugh at how the smallest things makes the kid gleeful. Sometimes Steve doesn’t think it’s enough. 

“You okay?” Dustin says as he stumbles towards the open back of the van and carefully sits on its edge. 

“Lot of stars here,” Steve says to the sky. 

“Light pollution makes it hard to see how many there really are. Places like this are very much about natural preservation. Modernization has its cons.” Dustin pauses for a few long beats. “Did you have a nightmare?”

“No,” Steve says and he finds that it’s the truth. This trip is the most consistent sleep he’s had in nearly a year. “I just wonder...what we’re going to find. When this will all end because--” He swallows around the growing lump in his throat. “Because it will have to end.”

“You know my mom knows I’m with you. I told her that we were going on some kind of road trip with Robin.” Steve whirls towards Dustin and gapes at him. Dustin merely shrugs. “I didn’t want you freaking out at first so I didn’t say the details. But she’s okay. She just wants me checking in. She wants you to be okay too, you know?”

Steve doesn’t know what to say. He loves Ms Henderson, and it hasn’t gone unnoticed how much she insists that he comes over for dinner, and how he always does because she looks so fucking earnest when she asks. She always gives him a huge helping when he leaves, enough to feed him for days, and even when it’s hard to do, Steve still eats it because no one has ever given enough of a shit to make sure he’s eating. 

“Yeah,’ Steve says roughly. 

Dustin slips off the edge of the van to stand beside Steve. He’s grown the last few months, nearly to Steve’s height. When he looks at the stars a smile forms on his face. 

“Get some sleep,” Dustin says. “Tomorrow’s gonna be a big day.”

“How do you know?”

Dustin’s grin is wide. “I can feel it.”


	13. Chapter 13

It’s gorgeous here. The air, despite the temperature, is dry and warm instead of oppressive. They walk around the park, observing the view of the South Rim, and the pure _vastness_ of what’s in front of them takes Steve’s breath away. Billy must have been here before if he’s led them to here, overlooking the same exact area of the canyon as they are. 

Steve closes his eyes, draws a picture in his mind of Billy walking to the edge of the viewing center and peering down into the vast below. He’d smile, of course he would, because even when Billy is scared he never shows it. He’d lean over, holding onto the metal barrier, and lift one foot in the air. It’d be closest he has to flying. 

No one says anything, not a single word, just soaking in the panoramic view of the natural wonders in front of them. Steve’s chest aches and he pushes that aside. He can’t be getting emotional right now, not when they’re so close to something big. 

“How far are we from the landmark?” Steve asks, his eyes steady on the horizon. 

“Not far,” Robin answers. “There’s a trail. It’s on that.” 

“We should probably head towards it, though,” Dustin says, peering down at his watch. “I brought snacks and all but I don’t want to push into lunchtime.”

Robin rolls her eyes. “Boys. Always thinking with their stomachs or their dicks.” 

Dustin places a hand over his chest. “Are you always this poetic?” 

Steve turns on his heels towards a path. “Want to lead, Dustin?” 

“I thought you’d never ask, Steve,” Dustin says with a triumphant air about him. He lifts his head like a fearless leader, and points in the direction in which they should walk. Steve bites back the smile forming on his lips. 

The “landmark”, they find, isn’t anything monumental. The way it was described in the book, apparently, is that it was meant to be something historical. What it is, they find out, is just a small metal sign that is engraved with the history of how pioneers had traveled from the east to the west, making their way through the Grand Canyon. Apparently that year there was a heat spike, and many perished, leaving only a few families to actually make it to the west coast. 

After Steve finishes reading the harrowing tale, he lifts his hands up in frustration. “What the hell am I supposed to get from that?” 

“It is pretty hopeless,” Dustin agrees. He begins walking around the perimeter of the sign. “There’s gotta be something else here. Kind of like what he did before, you know? Something for us to discover that no one else, not even a park ranger would find.” 

“Good point, buddy,” Robin says, squatting down to look underneath the sign. A satisfied smile forms on her face. She brushes her hand over the edge, concentration formed between her eyebrows, when her face lights up and she gasps. “I think I found something.”

Immediately Dustin and Steve are squatting with her, looking underneath the small frame, crowding around to find out what she found. Steve sees a small, laminated white piece of paper, and reaches up to pull on the edge. 

“Shit,” Steve murmurs, “It’s...like stuck or something.” 

“Hold!” Dustin commands in a voice that’s not unlike someone in a battlefield. It earns the proper reaction because both Steve and Robin immediately stop touching the paper. “It probably got warped because of the weather or something,” Dustin explains, searching into his backpack frantically. “Where the hell is—Ah yes!” He brandishes a pair of needle nose pliers. 

“What the actual fuck?” Steve says in a mixture of disbelief and awe. “How do you manage to have all this shit in your backpack?”

Dustin moves his hand over his face and wiggles his fingers. “Magic.” 

Hell, Steve nearly believes him. 

Robin reaches out for the pliers and Dustin hands them over. It takes a lot of teamwork, but eventually they get the paper out with a mixture of a lot of squatting, holding onto Robin so she doesn’t fall on her ass, and pulling. 

“This better be worth it,” Robin mutters, reading over the paper. Her eyebrows wrinkle together in concentration and then she hands the paper to Steve, her head tilting to the side in curiosity.

_She used to take me to the beach on Thursdays. I used to surf in the ocean. We always went to Albert’s for ice cream after_

The writing is neatly printed, with that familiar slant that Steve knows is Billy’s. He stares at the note for a long time, re-reading the words over and over again before closing his eyes. Billy had mentioned once about where he used to go with his mother in summer afternoons, before his dad would come home from work. He looked nostalgic, but also angry at something else. At the time Steve thought it was about his dad, but now he thinks it was about his mother too.

He folds the paper into his hand, pushing against the laminate until it surrenders. Bits of Billy’s handwriting gets lost in the folds. 

“I know where to go next,” Steve says with confidence. “We should leave tomorrow.”

***

Their last night in the South Rim they stay up through the night, watching the stars until they disappear with the rising sun. When they all pack up and start heading for a hotel just to get a truly good night’s sleep Steve knows it’s time to tell them everything.

He can’t keep it locked up inside anymore.

***

So he tells them about Billy’s dad, how he used to hurt him, how he would show up fucked up and battered, how he’d fight Steve every bit of the way. He tells them about that night at the mall when it all began, when the air was cold and crisp against his skin and how Billy is like a fucking hurricane, just sweeping you out into the ocean.

Dustin admits that Max hinted at the abuse once, but no one really picked up on it. He says it makes sense why Billy beat the shit out of Steve that night he came looking for Max. Dustin talks about how the anger inside of Billy seeped out of him when the Mind Flayer took over his body, how painful it must have been to live with all of that inside of him. 

Steve tells them he forgave Billy a long time ago. Somewhere between Billy showing up sweeping Steve away like a riptide, and losing him before they ever got a chance to live all those dreams they wanted, he forgave him. Somewhere between the sheets they soaked their sweat into, Billy’s hot mouth on Steve’s body, and those lonely nights at the quarry they spent together he forgave him. 

Dustin admits he still hates him a little bit for it. 

Steve understands. 

In the end Steve finds himself tumbling words of thanks, gratitude, and he wants to blame it on the lack of sleep from the night before, but he can’t. He really does genuinely feel this way, that in the last year he’s lost himself in the grief of everything that happened. He never wanted to admit that he hated the fact that he kept losing people he cared for. 

His parents. Evan. Nancy. Billy. 

Robin and Dustin don’t speak for a long time. Steve’s okay with that. He stares down at the pillow in his lap, clutching onto the edges and releasing his grip. Eventually Robin bumps shoulders with him and says, “Well, Harrington, you’re in luck. You’re stuck with us forever now.” 

Steve’s okay with that, too.

***

Steve drives to Venice Beach.

He’s never been to the West Coast before. His father’s business is always on the East coast, and they have some random beach house near the Hamptons that his parents share with some other couple they knew from college that moved to New York. Steve hasn’t been there since he was a kid, since he was able to cook his own meals, and lock the front door properly. 

But he knows that’s where Billy’s at. He knows his mom used to drive him down there when he was a kid, how he used to glide along the water. Billy never told him about that, that was El, one time when she was visiting with Will during Christmas break. She told Steve about how Billy caught a seven foot wave, about a woman who was wearing a white dress with blue and red flowers. 

She was pretty, she said. And he was happy. 

Steve tucked that away somewhere deep inside of him. He couldn’t think about Billy then, in the middle of Dustin’s living room, gathered around by bright lights and tinsel. He couldn’t think about the way that Billy lit him up like Christmas, how he never told Steve why he left, even if Steve knew. 

It’s much more expensive to stay at a hotel in California. Robin literally flinches when they hear how much it’ll cost for one night, and Steve is just thankful that his parents haven’t cut him off yet. He wonders if they’ve even tried to call home, the buzz of a ringtone in their ear that never gets answered. Probably not. They never have before, so why would they start now? 

He’s shuffling around the hotel room, anxious nerves setting him alive like an electric storm. He’s buzzing with anticipation, with fear, with want. Robin demands that he takes a shower, shoving a towel at his chest saying, “Take a nap too, you look like shit. And don’t take all the hot water. I need a shower too.” 

It was a good idea to get the hotel. They’ve been relying on them more lately and Steve can’t blame them. Betty is an excellent provider of sleeping options, but after a while a bed, regardless of quality is welcomed. A space to not worry about hitting the ceiling. A space to stretch out. 

When Dustin complains of hunger, Steve can’t help but agree. They find a Mexican restaurant near the hotel, a small dinky space that smells of grease and meat, but the burritos are massive and cheap. Dustin polishes his off first, chewing on corn chips and queso afterwards with silent contentment. 

“How do we know what time he’ll be there?” Robin asks, resting her chin in her hand. Her hair is still damp from the shower, her cheeks pink from the hot water, and she looks relaxed. 

“I don’t know,” Steve says with a frown. He pulls out the note again in his pocket, the edges curling up at the sides as he sets it on the table. Dustin pushes away the basket of chips in an effort to draw closer to the paper. Steve stares at it until he can’t anymore, leaning back in his chair with a sigh. 

“Did you read the back at all?” Robin asks, flipping it over and studying it. She chuckles and shakes her head. “No, you didn’t. There’s a time right here in the corner.” 

“Figures,” Steve huffs. “Lucky for us we only have to wait a couple days before Thursday.” 

“Or you could just...try today. Around 4pm like it says here,” Dustin says pointing to the time. “What’s the harm in trying that out?” 

That’s how they end up in Venice Beach, at around four in the afternoon. There’s a bunch of wild people out, like a variety show of entertainment. A man who clearly body builds for eighteen hours out of the day is lifting two random strangers up in the air like a loaf of bread. A bunch of hippies are gathered around banging on bongos, with a sign calling themselves the Solstice Drum Circle. 

It’s too much noise and clatter, setting Steve’s nerves on edge. He walks briskly through the boardwalk, until he finds the pier and the ice cream shop in front of it. 

Alberts is a small stand, with an airbrushed menu, and a line of demanding children wrapping around. Steve spins around on his heels trying to get his bearings, trying to find out where the hell he should be looking. 

Then he finds Billy. 

In the distance, against the lowering sun, Steve sees him. He’s away from the circus of people, and Steve’s chest tightens, his heart beating wildly between his ribs. It hurts to breathe. He can’t hear anything right now, just the roar of adrenaline in his ears. 

The sand is hot against his feet, against his ankles. It’s thick too, making it hard to run in it, Steve’s weight sinking him down into it the soft beach like fingers into clay. His brain is screaming with the internal mantra of _please be you, please be you, please, please, God, be you_. The closer he gets, the more Billy becomes clearer into his view, standing against the surf, white frothy waves crashing over his feet and linen white pants. The loose button down shirt he’s wearing whips around his hips against the breeze. 

He looks different than what Steve saw in the desert. Billy’s hair is shorter, his skin is tanner, and for a startling moment Steve doesn’t think it’s him. He thinks it must be a trick of the eye again, that this was some big sick joke. Billy keeps coming closer into view. Steve can’t feel his feet anymore, can’t feel the way his body is pulling Billy closer to him. He stops, several feet away, waits, because this can’t be real. 

Everything about Billy is there, but different. His shoulders are relaxed, the clenching edge on his jaw disappeared. Steve wants to press his mouth against it, see if it still feels the same under his lips. 

“Billy?” Steve chokes out, his voice hoarse like he’s been screaming. He can’t hear anything over the sound of the waves, the seagulls, and the constant roar in his ears. 

Billy turns and smiles at Steve, and he’s walking to him. They’re running, awkward and slow because of the sand, and Steve’s shoes are getting wet, his feet soaked, and he doesn’t care because Billy’s right there in front of him, his hands on Steve’s shoulders, sliding down to his hips. He smells the same as always, the same cologne mixed with the musty hint of cigarette smoke. 

Steve’s hands are all over Billy’s face, through his hair, gripping around his neck. He’s laughing and gasping for air, because Billy is alive. He’s warm, and smiling and _alive_. 

The babble of words flows out of Steve’s mouth, a nonsensical soliloquy of _“You fucking bastard, I cannot believe you’re alive, why didn’t you tell me, you’re here, oh my fucking God, you’re here.”_

He’s pretty sure he’s crying, his vision blurring, and he hates it when he cries, but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter when Billy pulls him close, tucks his face into Steve’s neck and wraps his arms around his waist, squeezing tight. Steve chokes out a laugh, shakes his head in amazement that he finally found him. He finally found Billy. 

Steve brushes his lips against the spot on Billy’s jaw that he’s always loved, and delights in the shiver that he receives. This is warm and familiar, and it makes Steve dizzy with affection. Spinning with emotion. 

When they kiss Billy’s lips are smooth, his tongue warm and inviting. They take their time, memorizing themselves all over again with care. It’s not a frenzied fight with teeth and moans, like it was before. It’s not rushed and aggressive. It’s slow, and careful, even a little tentative. 

They break apart, breathless. Steve’s hands rest on either side of Billy’s face, and when he moves his thumbs across his cheekbones, he realizes they’re wet. 

“You’re here,” Steve whispers one last time.

“That I am,” Billy whispers back, and it’s the exact answer Steve has been searching for.


End file.
